Stand To ...: A Journey to Manhood
E. Franklin Evans
iUniverse, Inc.
2021 Pine Lake Rd. Suite 100, Lincoln, NE 68512
ISBN 9780595450534, $19.95, http://www.iuniverse.com
After someone has endured the harshness and horrifying fear of
combat, they're left with memories. Some can only seem to deal with
those memories through medications, others by suppressing them and being
haunted by the ghosts in their dreams. E. Franklin Evans has confronted
his memories head on by rehearsing many of them in his book "Stand
To ...: A Journey to Manhood." This short book is his story, told
in a manner that can be as easily grasped by a teenager as by an older
adult.
Though Evans could probably have recounted loads of hair-raising
aspects of his tale, he has chosen to focus less on combat and more on
the men he led and served with. The people one meets through Evans'
account are in various ways humorously captivating, as well as
believably human, whether it's the brand new Platoon Sergeant who
picks up the radio receiver the wrong way and speaks into the back of
it, to the Kit Carson scout who finds Evans' lost wedding band and
returns it without asking for any reward. And, into this human mix is
camaraderie between soldiers that grows and thrives.
The closest Evans gets to rehearsing his combat experience in
detail is his recounting the highly stressful period he spent at the Ben
Het Special Forces camp, A-244. This becomes the literary climax of his
book. From the daily bombardment, to the nearly devastating, frightful
siege on the camp by the North Vietnamese Army in February and March
1969, through the tense time when "friendly" Strike Force
units held the American soldiers of camp A-244 hostage until their
demands were met, the reader will keep turning the pages to find out how
it all ends.
Evans has given the non-military world a readable account of the
life-shaping episode of his time in Vietnam. He has even added a fairly
helpful glossary at the end of the book to aid the reader in some of the
unfamiliar Army lingo. If a reader wants to have a first-hand glimpse
into infantry life in Vietnam, they will not be disappointed in reading
"Stand To ...: A Journey to Manhood."
COPYRIGHT 2008 Midwest Book
Review Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.
Copyright 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning. All rights
reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.
NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.