Hitchhiking Home from Danang: A Memoir of Vietnam, PTSD and Reclamation

by Gerald A. McCarthy

Overview

Gerald McCarthy enlisted in the Marines at 17 and volunteered for Vietnam. After the war he went AWOL, then to civilian jails and military brigs and finally to a Navy psychiatric ward, where he witnessed patient-attempted suicides. Medically discharged, he returned home to upstate New York and piecework in shoe factories. Written in two voices—one lucid, one dreamlike—his memoir delivers a jump-cut narrative of his troubled adolescence, his wartime experiences and his struggle to come unstuck from his own life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781476692845
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Publication date:	12/01/2023
Pages:	249
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Poet Gerald A. McCarthy lives in Nyack, New York.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I. Marking Time
 1. Dancing in the Dark
 2. Like a Rolling Stone
 3. What About Me
 4. Miles from Nowhere
 5. One Fine Day
 6. Will the Circle Be Unbroken?
 7. Keep On Pushing
 8. Here, There and Everywhere
 9. New Beginnings
Part II. Going South
10. Standing in the Shadows of Love
11. Sunny
12. Chain of Fools
13. Where Do We Go from Here?
14. Have You Ever Seen the Rain?
15. Darkness, Darkness
16. Who’ll Stop the Rain?
17. Carry That Weight
18. Slippin’ into Darkness
Part III. Nothing for Nothing
19. Four Days Gone
20. Running on Empty
21. When You Awake
22. New Beginnings
Part IV. In the Zone
23. I Walk the Line
24. I Got Dreams to Remember
25. If You Want Me to Stay
26. There’s a Hole in the Future
27. Goin’ Out of My Head
28. Song of the Wind
29. Catch the Wind
30. My Back Pages
31. Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing
32. New Beginnings
Part V. Waking
33. Slippin’ into Darkness
34. Working Class Hero
35. Going Down Slowly
36. Be True to Your School
37. Homeward Bound
38. Where Did You Sleep Last Night?
39. Sweet Melissa
40. The Other Side of the Sky
Part VI. Back Stories
41. Going in Circles
42. A House Is Not a Home
43. Estate
44. Dedicated to You
45. Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child
46. Hurt
Part VII. Falling Forward
47. In a Sentimental Mood
48. Winter in America
49. (Who Wrote) The Book of Love?
50. Pavane
51. Rivers of My Fathers
52. When I’m Gone
Epilogue: Collateral Damage
Music/Playlist Credits
Books: A Short List
Index

Editorial Reviews

A good read… The diverse 52 chapters mix well together into a tasty jambalaya of a book.”—VVA Veteran

From the Publisher