What do you think?
Rate this book
...and a Hard Rain Fell: A GI's True Story of the War in Vietnam
I didn't set out to write a book. It was 1982, fourteen years after I had last set foot in Vietnam, and thirteen years after I returned to The World. I had a family and a career. I’d never written more than an occasional letter to the editor in my life. My twisted insides had spawned ulcers. The nightmares were more frequent. I needed to get Vietnam out into the open, but I couldn’t talk about it. Not after all those years. Thus begins John Ketwig’s powerful memoir of the Vietnam War. Now, over 15 years after its initial publication, Sourcebooks is proud to bring …and a hard rain fell back into print in a newly updated edition, with a new introduction by the author and eight pages of never-before-published photographs. From the country roads of upstate New York to the jungles of Vietnam, and finally to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., …and a hard rain fell is a gripping and visceral account of one young man’s struggle to make sense of his place in a world gone mad.
400 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1985
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 80 reviews
March 4, 2015
A very powerful book, especially for those of us who faced the draft and Vietnam in the late sixties. Ketwig was sent to Vietnam where he faced unimaginable horrors. He rails against the army, as did most draftees, who became the "expendables" while the "lifers" stayed in their air-conditioned bunkers behind the lines and collected medals for themselves.
He "volunteers" for a second year to guarantee a billet in Thailand rather than return home because he doesn't think he can explain his 370 days in The Nam. While there he is recognized as a first-rate welder and is airlifted to somewhere classified -- obviously Laos, where our government assured us we were not -- to do some welds on an artillery battery that was shelling North Vietnam.
The section after he returned home feels a little hurried and uneven, almost as if he couldn't wait to get it out. His data regarding the effects of Vietnam on his fellow soldiers are nothing short of frightening. The Air Force "Ranch Hand" report found that mortality in children of Vietnam vets before 28 days was three times that of the population unexposed to Agent Orange. But of course the report said they would not hesitate to use it again.
Prophetically, while in Thailand he has dinner with a Japanese businessman(remember this is 1967) who says the new battlefield will be the marketplace. "War is too expensive." Obviously, we in America haven't been listening.
A must read
He "volunteers" for a second year to guarantee a billet in Thailand rather than return home because he doesn't think he can explain his 370 days in The Nam. While there he is recognized as a first-rate welder and is airlifted to somewhere classified -- obviously Laos, where our government assured us we were not -- to do some welds on an artillery battery that was shelling North Vietnam.
The section after he returned home feels a little hurried and uneven, almost as if he couldn't wait to get it out. His data regarding the effects of Vietnam on his fellow soldiers are nothing short of frightening. The Air Force "Ranch Hand" report found that mortality in children of Vietnam vets before 28 days was three times that of the population unexposed to Agent Orange. But of course the report said they would not hesitate to use it again.
Prophetically, while in Thailand he has dinner with a Japanese businessman(remember this is 1967) who says the new battlefield will be the marketplace. "War is too expensive." Obviously, we in America haven't been listening.
A must read
November 29, 2013
I generally shy away from such books, but a new friend of mine gave me a copy of a book he wrote in 1985. He thought it would have meaning for me. It did, but maybe not in the way he intended.
...And a Hard Rain Fell: A GI's True Story of the War in Vietnam by John Ketwig is still in print. It's a hard book to read if you were in Vietnam or if you were on the home front, protesting or not, waiting for a loved one to come home or not. The back cover likens this to Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo, a great anti-war novel. I read it years ago during a sit-in. I read it again before I plunged into Ketwig's story. Different, but so much the same.
Ketwig was a kid when he went to Vietnam. Late teens. He was there near Dak To and through the Tet Offensive. His book, divided into three sections, is stream of consciousness for the first half. His fear, his anger, come through in long run-on sentences where his emotions pour out onto the page. His second section, his healing year in Thailand before he returned to The World, is less frenetic. As he feels he's safe, his language is less powerful. The return to The World in section three is the weakest and shortest. But what he writes in the first section overrides the weakness of the last section.
This is one of the most painful books I've read about war. The writer, my friend, is damaged by PTSD. He still hasn't recovered, but his bravery in writing this book was one step in his healing process.
...And a Hard Rain Fell: A GI's True Story of the War in Vietnam by John Ketwig is still in print. It's a hard book to read if you were in Vietnam or if you were on the home front, protesting or not, waiting for a loved one to come home or not. The back cover likens this to Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo, a great anti-war novel. I read it years ago during a sit-in. I read it again before I plunged into Ketwig's story. Different, but so much the same.
Ketwig was a kid when he went to Vietnam. Late teens. He was there near Dak To and through the Tet Offensive. His book, divided into three sections, is stream of consciousness for the first half. His fear, his anger, come through in long run-on sentences where his emotions pour out onto the page. His second section, his healing year in Thailand before he returned to The World, is less frenetic. As he feels he's safe, his language is less powerful. The return to The World in section three is the weakest and shortest. But what he writes in the first section overrides the weakness of the last section.
This is one of the most painful books I've read about war. The writer, my friend, is damaged by PTSD. He still hasn't recovered, but his bravery in writing this book was one step in his healing process.
March 27, 2017
An absolutely searing and visceral account of one young mans war in Vietnam and its after effects on his life. At times extremely hard to read, making one ask many questions that have no answers, chiefly among them "Why?". I laughed, I wept, I squirmed, the author has a gift and hits all of ones emotions. If you read only one book about Vietnam...read this one.
December 30, 2009
This was actually assigned for one of my history classes and I dreaded reading it so much that I was finishing the book as I walked into my final for the class. But it was so worth it and is one of my many all time favorites.
July 9, 2024
This started out so good. The writing was engaging, and Ketwig comes across as a thoughtful and intelligent individual. The sections of the book where there's contact with the enemy are excellent. Ketwig's writing becomes choppy and quick during the parts; you can absolutely feel the tension, uncertainty and stress.
But the book loses steam about half-way through. I think the turning point for me was Ketwig's R&R in Penang. Part of this is because all of a sudden he's been in Vietnam for eight months, yet there's no feel for the passage of time for the reader. The other part is that he falls in love with a prostitute in Penang, and hopes to marry her and take her back to the States. It just comes across so pathetic and naïve. And this book I guess is no different than other memoirs in this respect, but I'm never sure how much I buy the dialogue. Ketwig writes lengthy conversations and monologues. I guess you have to take his word that they happened at all, or happened as he writes them.
After Ketwig's year in Vietnam, he goes to Thailand and really nothing else happens. It certainly provides a different perspective of serving in Southeast Asia, but it's not very interesting. Travel, random stories, philosophizing... The book wraps up with Ketwig's return home. There's a lot to read post-Vietnam but I don't think there's anything about it that warrants that much space of the book being dedicated to it.
It probably felt good for Ketwig to write this book and get some of his feelings and memories off his chest. But as a reader I was left disappointed in the end. The first half or so is a really great read, but everything after that isn't worth the time.
But the book loses steam about half-way through. I think the turning point for me was Ketwig's R&R in Penang. Part of this is because all of a sudden he's been in Vietnam for eight months, yet there's no feel for the passage of time for the reader. The other part is that he falls in love with a prostitute in Penang, and hopes to marry her and take her back to the States. It just comes across so pathetic and naïve. And this book I guess is no different than other memoirs in this respect, but I'm never sure how much I buy the dialogue. Ketwig writes lengthy conversations and monologues. I guess you have to take his word that they happened at all, or happened as he writes them.
After Ketwig's year in Vietnam, he goes to Thailand and really nothing else happens. It certainly provides a different perspective of serving in Southeast Asia, but it's not very interesting. Travel, random stories, philosophizing... The book wraps up with Ketwig's return home. There's a lot to read post-Vietnam but I don't think there's anything about it that warrants that much space of the book being dedicated to it.
It probably felt good for Ketwig to write this book and get some of his feelings and memories off his chest. But as a reader I was left disappointed in the end. The first half or so is a really great read, but everything after that isn't worth the time.
November 11, 2021
Ketwig's memoir of his time abroad as a soldier in southeast Asia and his ongoing struggle to make sense of the world that birthed the conflict in Vietnam is written with a raw and excruciating honesty. You will feel his fear, his hopes, his confusion, and get a deeper, more painful first-person view than you can even imagine in what I believe is hands-down one of the best personal accounts of the war.
January 10, 2017
For a soldier who lived in base for part of a tour and in Thailand for the other part, he sure did have a lot happen. Imagine meeting the enemy socially or suffering from depression due to a bad experience with drugs. Yes it's all here, it's sometimes well written, but at times lacks that quality that can lead the reader to believe what happened, maybe didn't.
March 7, 2023
A Hard Rain Fell, opinion
I enjoyed and respected the courageous retelling of personal experiences and the explanation of how terrifying war must be. I did not enjoy or agree with the liberal political view. You can have a different political view and still want no young people involved in war, ever again.
I enjoyed and respected the courageous retelling of personal experiences and the explanation of how terrifying war must be. I did not enjoy or agree with the liberal political view. You can have a different political view and still want no young people involved in war, ever again.
Want to read
December 1, 2021A type a personality with an anxiety disorder and perhaps a lot of good reasons to have it exaserbated.
I wasn’t quite sure what to think of this book when I started it. It seemed like a stream of consciousness though I did notice that it became more focused toward the middle of the book. Maybe this is to clarify confusion? I don’t know. The last thing I read about the Vietnam war was probably 20 years ago out of college so I was glad to see that the knowledge I had picked up then I retained because I knew the names of places and I understood the concepts that were being expressed in the book. They seemed to line up with what I had read and what others had told me.
This book was probably not what I expected. I know there is and was a lot of opposition to the war but I don’t think I really expected all the sexual information. I wasn’t put off by that I just don’t think I expected it. Sometimes I wondered if he was expressing the feelings that he had about the war and its activity and all of its philosophy in hindsight and I suppose that is not objectionable in a book. It seemed as if he had thought through some of this and was expressing it all after the fact although he was trying to line up his feelings with what his experiences were both in Vietnam and in Thailand. I read this book in doses but finally about the middle of the second year I got to the point where I needed to finish it. I thought OK I can’t read this much longer. I understand the discouragement and all of that I just need to get through this. I thought it was interesting that he had gone on to marry the person he was writing the letters to and had established a career because some of the things I’ve read about the vets point to that not happening. I do know some people that went through that and they have establish careers but I haven’t read much about that. I haven’t read many books on the subject since college so my information has been fragmentary.
I did enjoy the book if you can enjoy a book like that. It’s always hard to peer into a persons soul. It was enlightening and it was political and factual and expressed a lot of feelings that I thought were dramatic. But that is as a friend of mine says, the human condition. We all have flaws in our thinking somewhere so I don’t doubt the veracity of the experiences expressed. There were parts that were predictable. For example, I knew he wasn’t going to get the girl. Something just told me the way he was writing about her that he wasn’t going to get her. And
It was worth the read for sure. I know I’ll pick up more books on the subject but I don’t know if I’ll encounter one quite like that. I hope it accomplishes the goal that was set before it.
there is one more thing that comes to mind as I finish this review. I guess you can call it my training as a possible historian in college. I have always learned that one should cite examples and in one particular instance in this book when he discusses the Pentagon papers he expresses the opinion that they were full of lies but he doesn’t tell you what kind of information he reads in the papers to back that up. He may have made that point by talking about it during the book itself but I wasn’t familiar enough with the Pentagon papers to see if that was the case or if he just expressed an opinion and left it at that. I guess it just kind of makes me want to go read the Pentagon papers that sounds like something I would do. :-) So just something else to go research. I think I saw another book by this author so I’ll have to check it out and see if it is a continuation of this book or something entirely different. If I’m thinking about the book a few hours after I finish it definitely makes an impression.
Something else that just comes to mind is the use of music in the book. I am a musician and I can relate to listening to music to help sort through feelings. I know that he was using marijuana and other things to do that but he did mention the use of music and I thought I could at least relate to that part. So I’ll need to go look up some of the songs he mentioned because I didn’t know all of them but I was happy to see that I recognized a lot of the band names. :-) It’s been a long time since I read a book where I could relate to all the musical information in it.
Another thing that stood out to me when I was reading this was his interaction with the locals not only in a sexual way but getting to know them and eating the food and getting into the streets and seeing the temples in the shops and the people. He was trying to use all those things to help come to grips with what he had experienced and I don’t think I’ve read too many books where people do that. I know it might have been the fact that he was in Thailand which gave him that freedom and he appeared to put it to good use.
The last thing I’ll mention in this review is that it seemed sometimes as if he was turning against America but he was using his American standards to judge the American conduct of the war but he was also using those expectations to try to sort out his own feelings even though he was turning against them. I was thinking about his sexual activity. His upbringing would not have a proved of the way in which he conducted himself there. He was trying it seems to break free of those expectations in all cases but was constrained by them. I wonder if in the entire expression of his revulsion and his developing philosophies if he was trying to come to grips with what he experienced and what his expectations were. That idea needs a little more exploration. The book also emphasizes that Americans tend to what we call compartmentalize things. In for example, we must put on a mask and act as if everything is OK if it isn’t. You must try to have a social life, a family, a job, a measure of success that makes it appear to others around that you are OK. We like to keep our feelings constrained and we don’t feel like we have the freedom to discuss those with others or even admit them to ourselves. I know that things have changed in those regards to some degree with a more ready willingness to go into therapy or be more honest with ourselves about our own feelings. I think this book was definitely a look at how we treat our own feelings and don’t want to face those of others because they don’t always express our preconceived ideas of success. He did have a family and buy houses and do all those things but these feelings and experiences were so traumatic that they were forced to the surface by ordinary events such as the viewing of movies and documentaries. I have read that and other books about other Vietnam vets. I think that is some thing that happens to other people.
I just thought all of the feelings in this book reflected on so many things that you could spend pages analyzing the analysis. I wonder in closing if I would have understood this book if I had read it in my college history classes about the Vietnam war. I think as I have learned other things about history over the years combined with all of the other information I have taken in about the human condition and how we respond to things that those two major ideas help to deep in the understanding of this very complicated book. And then again maybe in 10 years I’ll pick this book up and think it’s not so complicated after all. :-)
I wasn’t quite sure what to think of this book when I started it. It seemed like a stream of consciousness though I did notice that it became more focused toward the middle of the book. Maybe this is to clarify confusion? I don’t know. The last thing I read about the Vietnam war was probably 20 years ago out of college so I was glad to see that the knowledge I had picked up then I retained because I knew the names of places and I understood the concepts that were being expressed in the book. They seemed to line up with what I had read and what others had told me.
This book was probably not what I expected. I know there is and was a lot of opposition to the war but I don’t think I really expected all the sexual information. I wasn’t put off by that I just don’t think I expected it. Sometimes I wondered if he was expressing the feelings that he had about the war and its activity and all of its philosophy in hindsight and I suppose that is not objectionable in a book. It seemed as if he had thought through some of this and was expressing it all after the fact although he was trying to line up his feelings with what his experiences were both in Vietnam and in Thailand. I read this book in doses but finally about the middle of the second year I got to the point where I needed to finish it. I thought OK I can’t read this much longer. I understand the discouragement and all of that I just need to get through this. I thought it was interesting that he had gone on to marry the person he was writing the letters to and had established a career because some of the things I’ve read about the vets point to that not happening. I do know some people that went through that and they have establish careers but I haven’t read much about that. I haven’t read many books on the subject since college so my information has been fragmentary.
I did enjoy the book if you can enjoy a book like that. It’s always hard to peer into a persons soul. It was enlightening and it was political and factual and expressed a lot of feelings that I thought were dramatic. But that is as a friend of mine says, the human condition. We all have flaws in our thinking somewhere so I don’t doubt the veracity of the experiences expressed. There were parts that were predictable. For example, I knew he wasn’t going to get the girl. Something just told me the way he was writing about her that he wasn’t going to get her. And
It was worth the read for sure. I know I’ll pick up more books on the subject but I don’t know if I’ll encounter one quite like that. I hope it accomplishes the goal that was set before it.
there is one more thing that comes to mind as I finish this review. I guess you can call it my training as a possible historian in college. I have always learned that one should cite examples and in one particular instance in this book when he discusses the Pentagon papers he expresses the opinion that they were full of lies but he doesn’t tell you what kind of information he reads in the papers to back that up. He may have made that point by talking about it during the book itself but I wasn’t familiar enough with the Pentagon papers to see if that was the case or if he just expressed an opinion and left it at that. I guess it just kind of makes me want to go read the Pentagon papers that sounds like something I would do. :-) So just something else to go research. I think I saw another book by this author so I’ll have to check it out and see if it is a continuation of this book or something entirely different. If I’m thinking about the book a few hours after I finish it definitely makes an impression.
Something else that just comes to mind is the use of music in the book. I am a musician and I can relate to listening to music to help sort through feelings. I know that he was using marijuana and other things to do that but he did mention the use of music and I thought I could at least relate to that part. So I’ll need to go look up some of the songs he mentioned because I didn’t know all of them but I was happy to see that I recognized a lot of the band names. :-) It’s been a long time since I read a book where I could relate to all the musical information in it.
Another thing that stood out to me when I was reading this was his interaction with the locals not only in a sexual way but getting to know them and eating the food and getting into the streets and seeing the temples in the shops and the people. He was trying to use all those things to help come to grips with what he had experienced and I don’t think I’ve read too many books where people do that. I know it might have been the fact that he was in Thailand which gave him that freedom and he appeared to put it to good use.
The last thing I’ll mention in this review is that it seemed sometimes as if he was turning against America but he was using his American standards to judge the American conduct of the war but he was also using those expectations to try to sort out his own feelings even though he was turning against them. I was thinking about his sexual activity. His upbringing would not have a proved of the way in which he conducted himself there. He was trying it seems to break free of those expectations in all cases but was constrained by them. I wonder if in the entire expression of his revulsion and his developing philosophies if he was trying to come to grips with what he experienced and what his expectations were. That idea needs a little more exploration. The book also emphasizes that Americans tend to what we call compartmentalize things. In for example, we must put on a mask and act as if everything is OK if it isn’t. You must try to have a social life, a family, a job, a measure of success that makes it appear to others around that you are OK. We like to keep our feelings constrained and we don’t feel like we have the freedom to discuss those with others or even admit them to ourselves. I know that things have changed in those regards to some degree with a more ready willingness to go into therapy or be more honest with ourselves about our own feelings. I think this book was definitely a look at how we treat our own feelings and don’t want to face those of others because they don’t always express our preconceived ideas of success. He did have a family and buy houses and do all those things but these feelings and experiences were so traumatic that they were forced to the surface by ordinary events such as the viewing of movies and documentaries. I have read that and other books about other Vietnam vets. I think that is some thing that happens to other people.
I just thought all of the feelings in this book reflected on so many things that you could spend pages analyzing the analysis. I wonder in closing if I would have understood this book if I had read it in my college history classes about the Vietnam war. I think as I have learned other things about history over the years combined with all of the other information I have taken in about the human condition and how we respond to things that those two major ideas help to deep in the understanding of this very complicated book. And then again maybe in 10 years I’ll pick this book up and think it’s not so complicated after all. :-)
October 30, 2023
I heard a Youtuber recommend “...And A Hard Rain Fell” by John Ketwig (1985, revised in 2002) and I got it from the library. It’s the author’s story of getting sent to Vietnam and what happened both before and after that. Ketwig does a good job (perhaps without even trying) of conveying attitudes that prevailed at the time that we have difficulty understanding in retrospect. For example, we can look back at Vietnam and say that of course it was a big deal and of course America lost but at the time the war was downplayed by the government and the corporate media to the point that many didn’t realize how many Americans were deploying and dying or getting maimed there. The idea of America losing a war, after the high of being the biggest winner of WWII, was also almost unthinkable, something that we take for granted today.
The author also does a good job of conveying the unfairness of conscription, especially for a war that most people didn’t care about (or actively opposed) without laying on the “woe is me” too thick. He actually enlisted voluntarily to avoid being infantry and that actually worked. The author was a gearhead and got to be an army mechanic instead of a grunt. That said, he was still deployed to Vietnam, there were artillery pieces going off near his base in Vietnam the whole time he was there and he even volunteered to go on a supply run to Dak To at one point where he truly got lots of opportunities to get killed in action and to see the horrors of war up close.
There’s not a lot of gun stuff in the book, but apparently the author got issued an M14 as late as 1967-68 in the US Army in Vietnam. I guess there wasn’t enough M16s for everyone and REMFs got whatever they got? The only time that rifle got shot was at Dak To when a grunt there picked it up out of the mud (the author dropped it when he came under direct fire for the first time), wiped it down, and stuck it over the sandbags to rip off a few rounds to make sure it worked before handing it back.
The story takes an interesting turn when the author gets leave in Penang, Malaysia and gets to see a part of Asia that isn’t a war-torn hole. He also falls in love with a high-end prostitute there and asks to get stationed in Thailand when his Vietnam tour is over for the chance to see her again. Another motivation that the author has for staying overseas for an extra year is that he keeps hearing about things spiraling out of control back in “The World” (always capitalized, this is the term the author uses for the USA throughout the book) and doesn’t want to get involved in that. He also has learned to hate army discipline and protocol and doesn’t want to get stuck on some stateside base where he will be subject to such for the remainder of his enlistment contract, a whole year.
Thailand duty is reported to be almost luxurious, more like an exotic vacation than a tour of duty, and the reports turn out to be accurate. Getting leave to go to Malaysia turns out to be difficult for many reasons and the author has to content himself with exploring Thailand instead. He also continues correspondence with a girl from his home state of New York who participated in a program to write letters to randomly chosen GIs who were stationed in Vietnam. The author began writing to her back in Pleiku, Vietnam, where he’d been stationed previously. The combination of speaking to someone from The World as well as being stationed in a mostly peaceful and friendly locale with most of The World’s amenities and comforts gave the author something that most Vietnam-era GIs were denied: time to decompress. GWOT-era troops were often taken to a ‘friendly’ foreign nation to get things in order before finally shipping home, something that many have told me was a good way to transition back to The World without complete culture shock. This was a lesson learned the hard way and one that was too late for the Vietnam generation to benefit from, by and large.
Predictably, the author’s plans to marry the prostitute that he’d fallen in love with didn’t work out. She was good enough at her job to elicit such feelings in her clients but, of course, didn’t reciprocate those feelings. This only added to the author’s sense of disappointment and bitterness. On top of that, the author’s skill at welding caused him to be used for some hush-hush missions into a place he was ordered not to talk about (it’s hinted that this place was almost certainly Laos, where US troops weren’t supposed to be) to do some repairs on broken artillery pieces. Being snatched from the exotic paradise of Thailand and inserted back into a warzone, even temporarily, was bad enough, but the secret nature of the missions meant that the author couldn’t even discuss it with anyone, adding to his anxiety.
The author’s return home was marked by confusing and unexpected hostility from his countrymen for no better reason than his hair length and his uniform. The author gets into the almost obligatory closing chapter about how the government basically betrayed the American people with their actions in Vietnam, perhaps especially those they actually sent there, mixed with a healthy dose of “they just didn’t get it” when talking about his fellow Americans’ reactions to how the war had changed the veterans. Trying to explain the unexplainable, especially when it has affected one so profoundly, has to be frustrating for the veteran and confusing and uncomfortable for the uninitiated. As an aside, I was brought to mind of the joke:
Q: “How many Vietnam vets does it take to screw in a lightbulb?”
A: “You don’t know, man, you weren’t there!”
The author eventually meets the girl he corresponded with back in NY and begins dating her. He gets into rally racing and finds that she’s into it too, becoming his navigator at races. At that point, he realizes that she’s The One and marries her. The economic downturn of the 70’s makes finding a job hard, as does the author’s veteran status in many cases, with Vietnam vets being pariahs in the eyes of many, even after the war was over. The newlywed couple also have a miscarriage and another child dies of SIDS early in their marriage. The stress of all of the above is what drives the author to start putting his experiences down on paper.
The final part of the book is the author attending the opening of the Vietnam Memorial in DC. It’s here that he gets the most political but mostly succeeds in staying in his lane and not getting too bombastic or preachy, something that he succeeds at for pretty much the whole book.
I thought it was a good read and the author’s experience seems to be a little different than that of most grunts from the Vietnam era. I don’t think I’d ever heard any accounts from US personnel stationed in Thailand at that time either. There’s not a lot of actual combat in this book but it’s most certainly an important and interesting account of the Vietnam War.
The author also does a good job of conveying the unfairness of conscription, especially for a war that most people didn’t care about (or actively opposed) without laying on the “woe is me” too thick. He actually enlisted voluntarily to avoid being infantry and that actually worked. The author was a gearhead and got to be an army mechanic instead of a grunt. That said, he was still deployed to Vietnam, there were artillery pieces going off near his base in Vietnam the whole time he was there and he even volunteered to go on a supply run to Dak To at one point where he truly got lots of opportunities to get killed in action and to see the horrors of war up close.
There’s not a lot of gun stuff in the book, but apparently the author got issued an M14 as late as 1967-68 in the US Army in Vietnam. I guess there wasn’t enough M16s for everyone and REMFs got whatever they got? The only time that rifle got shot was at Dak To when a grunt there picked it up out of the mud (the author dropped it when he came under direct fire for the first time), wiped it down, and stuck it over the sandbags to rip off a few rounds to make sure it worked before handing it back.
The story takes an interesting turn when the author gets leave in Penang, Malaysia and gets to see a part of Asia that isn’t a war-torn hole. He also falls in love with a high-end prostitute there and asks to get stationed in Thailand when his Vietnam tour is over for the chance to see her again. Another motivation that the author has for staying overseas for an extra year is that he keeps hearing about things spiraling out of control back in “The World” (always capitalized, this is the term the author uses for the USA throughout the book) and doesn’t want to get involved in that. He also has learned to hate army discipline and protocol and doesn’t want to get stuck on some stateside base where he will be subject to such for the remainder of his enlistment contract, a whole year.
Thailand duty is reported to be almost luxurious, more like an exotic vacation than a tour of duty, and the reports turn out to be accurate. Getting leave to go to Malaysia turns out to be difficult for many reasons and the author has to content himself with exploring Thailand instead. He also continues correspondence with a girl from his home state of New York who participated in a program to write letters to randomly chosen GIs who were stationed in Vietnam. The author began writing to her back in Pleiku, Vietnam, where he’d been stationed previously. The combination of speaking to someone from The World as well as being stationed in a mostly peaceful and friendly locale with most of The World’s amenities and comforts gave the author something that most Vietnam-era GIs were denied: time to decompress. GWOT-era troops were often taken to a ‘friendly’ foreign nation to get things in order before finally shipping home, something that many have told me was a good way to transition back to The World without complete culture shock. This was a lesson learned the hard way and one that was too late for the Vietnam generation to benefit from, by and large.
Predictably, the author’s plans to marry the prostitute that he’d fallen in love with didn’t work out. She was good enough at her job to elicit such feelings in her clients but, of course, didn’t reciprocate those feelings. This only added to the author’s sense of disappointment and bitterness. On top of that, the author’s skill at welding caused him to be used for some hush-hush missions into a place he was ordered not to talk about (it’s hinted that this place was almost certainly Laos, where US troops weren’t supposed to be) to do some repairs on broken artillery pieces. Being snatched from the exotic paradise of Thailand and inserted back into a warzone, even temporarily, was bad enough, but the secret nature of the missions meant that the author couldn’t even discuss it with anyone, adding to his anxiety.
The author’s return home was marked by confusing and unexpected hostility from his countrymen for no better reason than his hair length and his uniform. The author gets into the almost obligatory closing chapter about how the government basically betrayed the American people with their actions in Vietnam, perhaps especially those they actually sent there, mixed with a healthy dose of “they just didn’t get it” when talking about his fellow Americans’ reactions to how the war had changed the veterans. Trying to explain the unexplainable, especially when it has affected one so profoundly, has to be frustrating for the veteran and confusing and uncomfortable for the uninitiated. As an aside, I was brought to mind of the joke:
Q: “How many Vietnam vets does it take to screw in a lightbulb?”
A: “You don’t know, man, you weren’t there!”
The author eventually meets the girl he corresponded with back in NY and begins dating her. He gets into rally racing and finds that she’s into it too, becoming his navigator at races. At that point, he realizes that she’s The One and marries her. The economic downturn of the 70’s makes finding a job hard, as does the author’s veteran status in many cases, with Vietnam vets being pariahs in the eyes of many, even after the war was over. The newlywed couple also have a miscarriage and another child dies of SIDS early in their marriage. The stress of all of the above is what drives the author to start putting his experiences down on paper.
The final part of the book is the author attending the opening of the Vietnam Memorial in DC. It’s here that he gets the most political but mostly succeeds in staying in his lane and not getting too bombastic or preachy, something that he succeeds at for pretty much the whole book.
I thought it was a good read and the author’s experience seems to be a little different than that of most grunts from the Vietnam era. I don’t think I’d ever heard any accounts from US personnel stationed in Thailand at that time either. There’s not a lot of actual combat in this book but it’s most certainly an important and interesting account of the Vietnam War.
August 15, 2017
This is one of the best books dealing with the Vietnam experience I have read. Perhaps part of its appeal for me came from the parallels between Ketwigs experience and my own. Both of us served in non combat units but were drawn into combat from the periphery by the nature of our work. Though precise experiences were different our responses were oh so very similar. More importantly his observations and thought were so ver familiar to me; now after so many years my own have faded into a kind of heavy cloud that carries a felt sense but from which much detail has fled. This book brought my own responses back in stark relief.
The other similarity was his tour in Thailand. I did almost the same thing. After Vietnam I went to serve as a free lance soldier with FANK forces in Cambodia.There the combat I saw was of very high intensity and at close range. After I was slightly wounded, and the bubble of a sense of teenage invulnerability had been shattered by that event I went to Thailand to recover and spent several months traveling around that country, which then before the ruin of commercial tourism, it was the most beautiful place in the world and the Thai people before the greed of western consumerism got them by the throat were a very special people. Again his observations and thoughts as well as many of his experiences paralleled my own. This is a frank and truthful account by a young man who was typical of so many. we are all old now and the rawness of those years has dimmed, some may wonder and ask what it was like, the answers can be glimpsed here.
The other similarity was his tour in Thailand. I did almost the same thing. After Vietnam I went to serve as a free lance soldier with FANK forces in Cambodia.There the combat I saw was of very high intensity and at close range. After I was slightly wounded, and the bubble of a sense of teenage invulnerability had been shattered by that event I went to Thailand to recover and spent several months traveling around that country, which then before the ruin of commercial tourism, it was the most beautiful place in the world and the Thai people before the greed of western consumerism got them by the throat were a very special people. Again his observations and thoughts as well as many of his experiences paralleled my own. This is a frank and truthful account by a young man who was typical of so many. we are all old now and the rawness of those years has dimmed, some may wonder and ask what it was like, the answers can be glimpsed here.
July 29, 2017
Ketwig's memoir is an excruciating emotional odyssey that follows a young man from small-town USA through his draft into the Vietnam War and the subsequent experiences that teach him the meaning of the term "expendable."
"...And A Hard Rain Fell" delivers not only an account of the physical and emotional trauma of the war and aftermath, but also the cultural upheaval and political corruption and turmoil of the US in the 1960s. Prepare to experience the news of MLK Jr and Bobby Kennedy's assassinations, the moon landing, Woodstock, civil rights struggles and peace protests, the Fort Kent shootings, and all of the hope, despair, anger, and joy that accompanied these events through the mind of a young, wide-eyed soldier who struggles to find hope and spread peace as an unwilling participant in the Vietnam War.
"...And A Hard Rain Fell" delivers not only an account of the physical and emotional trauma of the war and aftermath, but also the cultural upheaval and political corruption and turmoil of the US in the 1960s. Prepare to experience the news of MLK Jr and Bobby Kennedy's assassinations, the moon landing, Woodstock, civil rights struggles and peace protests, the Fort Kent shootings, and all of the hope, despair, anger, and joy that accompanied these events through the mind of a young, wide-eyed soldier who struggles to find hope and spread peace as an unwilling participant in the Vietnam War.
November 12, 2015
Ketwig's personally subjective account of a non combatant in Vietnam at the age of nineteen is brutally raw and emotionally insightful. It chronicles his experience, during which he confronted death and disillusionment not only with his country but with humanity and most importantly, with himself especially upon his return to American soil. Sadly, the same many faced during this horrific time in our Nation's history and to date, emotional detachment is a continued battle as P.T.S.D. is prevalent in many of the lives of our Vietnam Veterans.
In my opinion, it wasn't a spellbinding read but it does offer a good recollection of war whose insights are as applicable today as the time period it describes.
In my opinion, it wasn't a spellbinding read but it does offer a good recollection of war whose insights are as applicable today as the time period it describes.
November 18, 2019
I found this book in a box outside of a pizzeria in my town, the only one that really caught my eye. I forced myself to stretch this story out as long as possible over a couple of months because you just become that enthralled in Ketwig’s story. This book did an amazing thing for me as a young 18 year old, especially the emotions and fears that transcend time and situations. One of the best stories I have ever read.
August 17, 2008
This is one of the most touching books I have ever read. And I don't use phrases like, "I was touched." It's really great.
August 6, 2022
Engrossing and infuriating book. Mostly because, of all the first-person Vietnam books I've devoured, this one really depicts the utter inhumanity of the military and its treatment of those who went off to be senselessly destroyed in Vietnam. Ketwig's hardships don't even begin to encompass his under-fire conditions--though these and other atrocities are everywhere; the fear, the justifiable criteria for fragging officers, the bloodshed and torture. Yet the most harrowing moments portray the utter incompetence of the military-industrial complex itself. Ketwig and others have their lives put in danger over the pettiest, most selfish, cowardly political behavior I've ever read about the military. And it is positively nauseating to think of the US government in 1967 blindly sacrificing young generations of skilled men and women for such a lost cause, and then covering everything up. The injustices are impossible to ignore, so Ketwig does not come across as a crybaby or an unpatriotic man. He shows more bravery during his tour of duty than any of his sadistic training could have possibly prepared him for. And as for the ranking officers and other "leaders" he encounters who hide in their tents or behind enemy lines, the less said the better. One hell of a book. The author's descriptions of Thailand also measure up as fascinating, both culturally and politically.
May 22, 2023
Of all the memoirs I have read about service in Vietnam, this is the one that made me terrified, made me angry at this war and all wars, made me almost vomit. Ketwig has a pen that doesn't run out of ink and when he gets going, you hear his experience and opinions right, left, front, behind, up, down and upside down. He runs the risk of rant, but articulated with feelings, emotions, outrage, love, exasperation. And it is as if he experienced it all more intensely in reflection than he did the first time around. His PTSD has no holds barred. His extra tour, done in Thailand, because he felt without his gap year, he would be almost crippled in an inability to talk, to relate, to connect with people in the World.
Because I don't think it is right to give grades for life, all the memoirs get five stars. And each man's story is 100%, and yet I am in awe of Ketwig, who survived the military with his humanity and hius soul intact.
Because I don't think it is right to give grades for life, all the memoirs get five stars. And each man's story is 100%, and yet I am in awe of Ketwig, who survived the military with his humanity and hius soul intact.
April 1, 2018
I just finished reading this book and I found it to be the best memoir written about the Vietnam war. It wasn't written by a combat soldier, but yet it had the perspective from a combat side and a support side of the war. The author was trained as a mechanic and then a welder, but was still in the trenches with the combat soldiers. It tells of the anguish of Vietnam Veteran who was looking for answers, but it took years to find and yet some have still not been found for the war or the anguish many veteran's feel to this day.
March 15, 2022
Probably one of the hardest books for me to get through to date. The subject matter just destroyed your soul.
I can't even begin to describe what Ketwig wrote, I could understand his thoughts and feeling. Heck, I agreed with him a lot of the time.
It's been a long time since I've almost cried over the ending of the book. When Ketwig made reference to Lynda Van Devanter, I let out a gasp. Since I knew the women he was referencing.
There are really no words to describe this book, other than pick it up and read it for yourself.
I can't even begin to describe what Ketwig wrote, I could understand his thoughts and feeling. Heck, I agreed with him a lot of the time.
It's been a long time since I've almost cried over the ending of the book. When Ketwig made reference to Lynda Van Devanter, I let out a gasp. Since I knew the women he was referencing.
There are really no words to describe this book, other than pick it up and read it for yourself.
October 23, 2023
I picked up this book from the bookshelf of my deceased uncle-in-law, a Vietnam vet. My uncle-in-law was a jerk. He was always making terrible comments “to stir things up a little,” and his political choices were very far from mine. At the memorial service people talked about sides of him that I never got to see, though, like his love for learning and his close relationship with neighbors.
Reading this book gave me insight into his experiences as a combat medic in Vietnam. The book, and I’m sure his experiences, was gruesome and terrible. I wish I’d read it earlier.
Reading this book gave me insight into his experiences as a combat medic in Vietnam. The book, and I’m sure his experiences, was gruesome and terrible. I wish I’d read it earlier.
January 2, 2020
A hard look at the long lasting effects of the Vietnam war
The war has been over for many years but as a Vietveteran I can always feel its presence, lurking. There have been a multitude of books written about the Vietnam war but not quite like this one. This one captures what the war was like, its horrors and after effects for the men and women who served. I wish our politicians would read it before sending our you out to die.
The war has been over for many years but as a Vietveteran I can always feel its presence, lurking. There have been a multitude of books written about the Vietnam war but not quite like this one. This one captures what the war was like, its horrors and after effects for the men and women who served. I wish our politicians would read it before sending our you out to die.
July 23, 2023
This was a difficult read; yet, very much worth reading! If you have the slightest interest in this era and this event and would like to understand more about how/why it happened the way it did, I strongly recommend that you read this book. It definitely isn't your typical political/military bullshit history book. It's from one man who pulled it out of himself from waaay down deep. It's probably one of the most truthful and accurate Vietnam era books I've ever read.
March 24, 2020
When I started reading this book I was looking forward to the first hand experiences of an American soldier in Vietnam. At times I did enjoy the book and the stories, but I think it was too political, and also a large portion of the book is written about His deployment in Thailand. Definitely not gripping
August 1, 2023
Overall a pretty good insight of the revelations over time that shaped the authors life in Vietnam. Although we was not in combat often the 4 instances he did experience I felt were reiterated way too many times throughout the book. Also there was a few times he got bogged down talking about the political agenda that strayed away from his story.
April 5, 2023
And he fell on his head...hard
This person who claimed the book to be true? I seriously question that. The book was one of the worst I have read on the Vietnam war. It was so bad I could not, would not, finish the book. A waste of my hard earned money.
This person who claimed the book to be true? I seriously question that. The book was one of the worst I have read on the Vietnam war. It was so bad I could not, would not, finish the book. A waste of my hard earned money.
August 15, 2023
My Dad was a Vietnam vet, worked on the helicopters. From the Buffalo area also. As a child heard a lot of the lingo and some of the places. Definitely brought things more to light and even more understanding to his reactions, and quiet times you knew to leave him alone.
May 13, 2024
It’s the most honest, brutal and yes, interesting book about the war that I’ve read… but I was much less enamored of the sex, massages and Diamond ring in Penang and Thailand. I skimmed that half of the book.
December 30, 2017
very good detailed version of what life must have been like in Vietnam.
February 7, 2018
It was very interesting to read how it was like living as a GI in Vietnam during the Vietnam War.
February 8, 2018
excellent book
Displaying 1 - 30 of 80 reviews