Well Done, Those Men

Book excerpt: In this intensely personal account, Barry Heard draws on his own experiences as a young conscript, along with those of his comrades to look back at life before, during, and after the Vietnam War. The result is a sympathetic vision of a group of young men who were sent off to war completely unprepared for the emotional and psychological impact it would have on them. It is also a vivid and searingly honest portrayal of the authors post-war, slow-motion breakdown, and how he dealt with it. WELL DONE, THOSE MEN attempts to make sense of what Vietnam did to the soldiers who fought there. It deals with the comic absurdity of their military training and the horror of the war they fought, and is unforgettably moving in recounting what happened to Barry and his comrades when they returned home to Australia.