PREVIEW
In 1969, I was homeless, hungry, unemployed and living in an abandoned church parsonage. I enlisted in the army for food and a warm bed as a typist. The honor and glory lured me into hell. I became combat platoon leader and assassin for my country responsible for the lives of 50 men of nineteen. The language is prose poetry that lingers in the mind. The characters are the simple and spiritual survivors that lived in my soul for thirty years. They are the quiet hero rebels of the days we got lost in arrogance.
Few veterans describe themselves as "heroes." It's a painful word - filled with aspiration, horror and loss. Many veterans who write memoirs avoid the most devastating echoes of war - their own perceived culpabilities. It's understandable. Who wants to poke a finger into a festering wound?
Douglas Bergman is a brave man. Using a magnifying glass, he focuses a scorching sunbeam onto his own soul - allowing the reader to see his demons in great detail. It is unsettling in a world where few want to accept responsibility for their mistakes - where confessions are whispered litanies of shame washed away with a few penitential rosaries. My initial reaction was to look away but I soon found myself examining the author's broken heart like a curious onlooker drawn to a fiery car wreck.
REVIEW
This book is many things - a memoir, an adventure, a tribute, a confession and a sob. From the shiny hearse-white cover to the imagery-dense prose, Mr. Bergman's tale perplexes and intrigues. Vietnam was a conundrum for everyone. For the men who fought there, growing up was like peeling a scab off a half-healed wound. Boy soldiers drawn to the service to resolve other problems found new sorrows to occupy their nightmares. "Names I Can't Remember" is a close up view of a Vietnam Veteran's reaction to war - and a description of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) that still torments many who were mere babies in the 1960s.
The author plunges into his story with profane vigor. He amuses and shocks with an almost adolescent glee - as though he has returned to his rebellious, angst-ridden youth and is set on taking the reader with him. He uses literary flourishes that complicate the read like a translucent veil draped over lovers laboring together for their love. You can see the movements, hear them moan - but their faces are dim behind the silken sheen of the fabric. Mr. Bergman peoples "Names I Can't Remember" with garish characters that touched his life but have now faded into ghostly symbols - a motherly whore, a man with a cat on his shoulder, a doofus unable to function in the jungle, an alcoholic CO who confuses courage and foolhardiness -- a nun and a Vietnamese child trying desperately to survive. Despite this distance - or perhaps because of it, this book is powerful and literate. I found myself lingering over the pictures the author created in my head - almost as if this was a novel. It was easier to appreciate this work on that level than to acknowledge the reality of Mr. Bergman's anguish.
The Vietnam War was not a Disney Movie -- neither is this book. However, if you are a student of psychology, a poet - or someone who wants to understand the warrior in your life, this is a wonderful read.
