Journey Among Heroes

Book excerpt: Mesmerized by photographs of old women in a quiet room in a Hanoi museum in Vietnam, author Bob Greer spent a year traveling around the region researching the thirty-year Vietnam War. In Journey among Heroes, he presents a view of that war through the eyes of a tourist. Traveling by ancient motorcycle, bus, speedboat, train, aircraft, and car, Greer enjoyed a privileged view of what really happened in Vietnam. He offers a glimpse of the war's human aspect through interviews of eleven of Vietnam's Hero Mothers, a designation bestowed on more than 44,000 of the country's mothers who lost more than two family members while fighting the war. Greer tells of the great courage and an amazing female fighting tradition that possibly tipped the scales in favor of the eventual victors, and he tells of losses unimaginable to Westerners. Journey among Heroes communicates how Vietnam experienced a harrowing era and why it is now time to lend a helping hand.