Vietnam Full Circle: A Combat Veteran Returns

The immigration officer at the airport in Saigon slid my passport over the scanner at his desk. After consulting his monitor he remarked in English Welcome back Lieutenant. I answered in Vietnamese Thank you Captain. Our eyes met. He dipped his head and smiled. I entered his country stamped passport in hand exhilarated at what lay ahead. -Vietnam Full Circle.Forty years after serving as the only American combat adviser in a 500-man Vietnamese infantry battalion Dockery returns to Vietnam as a volunteer. Living for a decade in Saigon he works with clergy students street children and Vietnamese veterans gaining striking insights into how both he and Vietnam have transformed since the war.In clear polished prose Vietnam Full Circle builds on Dockerys previous book Lost in Translation (Random House 2003) which detailed his time as a 23-year-old in the war. Now returning to Vietnam as a man in his 60s Dockerys unique perspective allows him to see the ways that ancient customs and modern practices as well as North-South animosities have forged the cultural economic and political landscape of the country as it is today. With a keen eye a sense of humor and an inquisitive outlook Dockery builds a life in the very place hed long ago left behind. Appreciating anew the heart and soul of its people he discovers that its never too late in life to fall in love.