With The Chaplain s Assistant: God, Country and Vietnam, JT Caldwell has written a next generation war novel a completely satisfying work of fiction that depicts not the brutality of war, but the effects that brutality has on those who serve. Without a single shot fired, without a company taking an enemy position or calling frantically for air support, Caldwell has created a portrait of war that is at once grim, funny, realistic and moving. The book follows Ted Bertson, son of a Baptist minister and professional singer, after he is drafted into the Army during the Vietnam war. Almost immediately he becomes an unwilling participant in a life he is powerless to change, in a war nobody wants. Though he is in Vietnam for a year, it takes him thirty years to outrun the nightmares and erase the lingering horrors of that experience. In the end, this riveting memoir-based novel sends a loud and clear message: war is indeed, hell, and the hardest part of returning from war is the journey back home