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To Any Soldier: A Novel of Vietnam Letters
"“I could not put the book down and read it cover to cover in one sitting. Any veteran, spouse, or friend of a veteran, for or against our involvement in Vietnam, knows the importance of Mail Call.”
—Lt. Col. Jim Dyer, US Army, retired
In 1968 Jay Fox is a young marine attack pilot in Vietnam and Ashley Beth Justice is a college freshman in North Carolina when they meet each other by chance, through letters.
Ashley Beth, naïve and totally separated from the Vietnam War, begins her letter-writing as a way to personally contribute to the war effort. Having recently moved away from her small hometown, she’s beginning to see the world from a new perspective.
Jay, in the midst of bombing runs each evening, has purposefully distanced himself from any close relationships, but there’s something about Ashley Beth’s innocent and forthright manner that compels him to answer her letters.
The reality of the war hits home for Ashley Beth when Jay describes his plane almost colliding with another after a dangerous bombing run. The stakes are higher now—the disagreements, more intense; the flirtations, more significant.
Even amid the bloodshed in Vietnam and the civil unrest at home, Jay and Ashley Beth dare to dream of a life together while struggling to understand the war and themselves in To Any Soldier."
—Lt. Col. Jim Dyer, US Army, retired
In 1968 Jay Fox is a young marine attack pilot in Vietnam and Ashley Beth Justice is a college freshman in North Carolina when they meet each other by chance, through letters.
Ashley Beth, naïve and totally separated from the Vietnam War, begins her letter-writing as a way to personally contribute to the war effort. Having recently moved away from her small hometown, she’s beginning to see the world from a new perspective.
Jay, in the midst of bombing runs each evening, has purposefully distanced himself from any close relationships, but there’s something about Ashley Beth’s innocent and forthright manner that compels him to answer her letters.
The reality of the war hits home for Ashley Beth when Jay describes his plane almost colliding with another after a dangerous bombing run. The stakes are higher now—the disagreements, more intense; the flirtations, more significant.
Even amid the bloodshed in Vietnam and the civil unrest at home, Jay and Ashley Beth dare to dream of a life together while struggling to understand the war and themselves in To Any Soldier."
221 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 10, 2015
5 people are currently reading
379 people want to read
About the author
G.C. Hendricks
1 book1 followerG.C. Hendricks, the critically acclaimed author of The Second War, is a decorated pilot who flew more than two hundred missions in Vietnam. He lives and works in Montana.
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January 22, 2016"With the exception of a prologue and epilogue, this compelling novel is told entirely from the late 1960s’ correspondence between a teenaged girl and a Marine attack pilot stationed in Vietnam.
The story begins when former pilot Jay Fox visits a classroom decades after the war and finds his memory sparked by the presence of a young woman in the class. After his talk, he returns home to retrieve a pack of letters kept in a file cabinet in his storage shed. The first letter is addressed “To Any Soldier,” and written by Ashley Beth Justice, a college freshman who has heard soldiers don’t get many letters. Having found the letter on the bulletin board in the Marine quarters in Da Nang, Jay Fox wrote back — and so the correspondence begins.
The two share a common background, both having been raised in the South in nearby communities. She is a naïve 19-year-old, curious about the war but also troubled by it. He’s a seasoned 23-year-old given to using words like “gook,” and “faggot,” with no uncertainty about his mission to kill. While they spar about the war and the anti-war movement, they bond over commonalities, sharing poems and childhood tales and soon, even a fantasy life.
This is a finely written, illuminating tale about an era when our country was at odds over a war that many opposed, a war where veterans were often seen not as heroes but villains. The characters are likeable, but imperfect; their situation realistic; their correspondence humorous, direct and enlightening, particularly as it pertains to the life of a fighter pilot at war. Such a tale could turn predictable, but To Any Soldier does not take the easy path and the outcome is a question to the very poignant end.
This tale takes on difficult issues without blinking, and readers will close the book feeling enlightened and moved. To Any Soldier is sure to please a wide audience.
Also available as an ebook."
The story begins when former pilot Jay Fox visits a classroom decades after the war and finds his memory sparked by the presence of a young woman in the class. After his talk, he returns home to retrieve a pack of letters kept in a file cabinet in his storage shed. The first letter is addressed “To Any Soldier,” and written by Ashley Beth Justice, a college freshman who has heard soldiers don’t get many letters. Having found the letter on the bulletin board in the Marine quarters in Da Nang, Jay Fox wrote back — and so the correspondence begins.
The two share a common background, both having been raised in the South in nearby communities. She is a naïve 19-year-old, curious about the war but also troubled by it. He’s a seasoned 23-year-old given to using words like “gook,” and “faggot,” with no uncertainty about his mission to kill. While they spar about the war and the anti-war movement, they bond over commonalities, sharing poems and childhood tales and soon, even a fantasy life.
This is a finely written, illuminating tale about an era when our country was at odds over a war that many opposed, a war where veterans were often seen not as heroes but villains. The characters are likeable, but imperfect; their situation realistic; their correspondence humorous, direct and enlightening, particularly as it pertains to the life of a fighter pilot at war. Such a tale could turn predictable, but To Any Soldier does not take the easy path and the outcome is a question to the very poignant end.
This tale takes on difficult issues without blinking, and readers will close the book feeling enlightened and moved. To Any Soldier is sure to please a wide audience.
Also available as an ebook."
March 23, 2018
I was there. I could have been Ashley Beth. I knew Jay. We lost a lot of Jays.
When college freshman Ashley Beth Justice writes a letter “to any soldier” in Vietnam, it lands in the hands of Marine pilot Jay Fox. So begins a year-long correspondence between the two.
Ashley Beth is young and naïve. Jay is alone and eager for comforting words from home. The combination of Ashley Beth’s naïveté and Jay’s raw young passion (for his career, his desires, his dreams for his future) create a love story of letters that is touching, sincere, and lovely in its innocence.
Kathryn Watson Quigg and J. C. Hendricks’ TO ANY SOLDIER is a poignant tribute to an incomprehensibly tragic period in American history.
We will all be praying for Jay's safe return and for Ashley Beth and Jay's relationship, and the conclusion of their story will touch our hearts. And it just might make us cry…
March 29, 2018
TO ANY SOLDIER: A NOVEL OF VIET NAM LETTERS by G. C. Hendricks & Kathryn Watson Quigg takes place in 1968. The story centers on Mary Beth Justice, a nineteen-year-old North Carolina College freshman, and Lieutenant Jay Fox, a twenty-three-year-old marine pilot stationed in Viet Nam. Mary Beth writes a letter addressed “To Any Soldier” in an effort to support the war effort. Lt. Fox discovers the letter, and responds. Soon, the two are corresponding regularly and, during the course of that tumultuous year, a relationship develops.
As an individual who lived through the Viet Nam era, I found the story compelling as it was presented through the personal nature of the letters. Very true to life and, in some cases, upsetting as it brought back unpleasant memories. The story was well organized, well written, and professionally edited. I highly recommend this novel.
As an individual who lived through the Viet Nam era, I found the story compelling as it was presented through the personal nature of the letters. Very true to life and, in some cases, upsetting as it brought back unpleasant memories. The story was well organized, well written, and professionally edited. I highly recommend this novel.
March 19, 2016
Ashley Beth, a college freshman in 1968, writes a letter and sends it to Vietnam because some soldiers don’t get much mail. When Jay Fox, a young attack pilot, answers her letter, they develop a close relationship over a year of corresponding. Then Jay heads back to the states. What will the future bring?
I really enjoyed their letters….the arguments, the tenderness, the opening up of their lives to each other. The format and photographs made it very real.
I received this book through Goodreads First Reads program for free and I recommend it highly.
I really enjoyed their letters….the arguments, the tenderness, the opening up of their lives to each other. The format and photographs made it very real.
I received this book through Goodreads First Reads program for free and I recommend it highly.
May 21, 2021
A must-read for those who would like a moving and honest introduction to the experiences of young women and men in the Vietnam era. Ashley Beth Justice, a college freshman in North Carolina, and Jay Fox, a marine attack pilot in Vietnam, become pen pals through a program meant to support troops. They share the experiences that shape their lives in voices have the ring of truth. Their points of view grow and change with the years, along with their relationship and its possibilities. Subtle, powerful, unforgettable.
September 11, 2019
I don't really like this style of book (of letters, blogs, emails, etc) but this was interesting enough to usually keep my attention. I think it was watching them and their relationship grow over the course of the year. Unsatisfactory ending though.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 2, 2017
I loved reading this book, the descriptions the soldier tells, and the sense of how he dealt with some of the things going on in Vietnam, interesting.
April 25, 2018
I was sure that letter writing had been consigned to the dustbin of history, when Hendricks and Watson Quigg resuscitated the genre with their wonderful correspondence-based novel. It has an intensity deserving more than a passing look. Set at the great crossroads of American History that was Vietnam, and beginning in 1968, an extraordinary year where the world shed its skin into something different, the letters between Ashley and Jay create a mirror of our present. The characters’ journey is ultimately a reflection about issues as diverse as our role in the ever-present wars we fight and the position that women held—and should hold—in our society.
The letters between a pilot stationed in Da Nang and a young woman right at the beginning of her college years, very soon turn into a deep story of how we decide to spend our lives. It’s in the magic of those letters—shared dreams that fuse two minds in a more lasting fashion than our modern social media—where the story finds its true strength. The writing “pals” share increasingly intimate parts of who they are and build a connection—a thought exchange—that would affect how they confront their future lives. Without spoilers, the two correspondents surrender to the process and get to travel both to their origins—closer than one would think at the beginning—and forward into what they want to do with their selves. There’s tension and fear for the risks a pilot must take, and an unavoidable final confrontation with the real world outside the envelopes.
The authors have carefully illustrated the book with photographs, and the collaboration adds a dimension of alternate reality to the story. Being two writers, they give a realistic sense of a communication that starts clearly coming from different persons and slowly evolves into more similar styles—and more ambitious attempts to create poetic components to the letters. The reader feels as if pieces of the characters’ souls are being exchanged.
Perhaps the only nagging point about an epistolary novel (yes, that old word common in Victorian times) is not the wonderful story that unfolds, but our present lack of a framework—if you are less than fifty years old—about how an extended, involved correspondence is the best way to get to really know someone. Outside of very restrictive environments where this still happens, like those who exchange letters with the imprisoned, many people would have today a tough time understanding the experience. The instantaneous while fragmentary communication of our age is biased toward the public persona rather than the uncertainties of our private world, and thus it has little to do with the soul-baring of these letters. The book needed a metalanguage, an accompanying booklet, or even a whole course built around it to enlighten us about the extraordinary experience that’s depicted here.
I don’t think this last point affects my rating of the book, and since I’ve reread it with pleasure, I highly recommend it. It shows an aspect of humanity, of how we can get to better know each other, that our post-(e)mail world is keeping hidden under layers of flashiness. Read it, and maybe read it again like I did, to see how the magic of sharing our dreams works.
The letters between a pilot stationed in Da Nang and a young woman right at the beginning of her college years, very soon turn into a deep story of how we decide to spend our lives. It’s in the magic of those letters—shared dreams that fuse two minds in a more lasting fashion than our modern social media—where the story finds its true strength. The writing “pals” share increasingly intimate parts of who they are and build a connection—a thought exchange—that would affect how they confront their future lives. Without spoilers, the two correspondents surrender to the process and get to travel both to their origins—closer than one would think at the beginning—and forward into what they want to do with their selves. There’s tension and fear for the risks a pilot must take, and an unavoidable final confrontation with the real world outside the envelopes.
The authors have carefully illustrated the book with photographs, and the collaboration adds a dimension of alternate reality to the story. Being two writers, they give a realistic sense of a communication that starts clearly coming from different persons and slowly evolves into more similar styles—and more ambitious attempts to create poetic components to the letters. The reader feels as if pieces of the characters’ souls are being exchanged.
Perhaps the only nagging point about an epistolary novel (yes, that old word common in Victorian times) is not the wonderful story that unfolds, but our present lack of a framework—if you are less than fifty years old—about how an extended, involved correspondence is the best way to get to really know someone. Outside of very restrictive environments where this still happens, like those who exchange letters with the imprisoned, many people would have today a tough time understanding the experience. The instantaneous while fragmentary communication of our age is biased toward the public persona rather than the uncertainties of our private world, and thus it has little to do with the soul-baring of these letters. The book needed a metalanguage, an accompanying booklet, or even a whole course built around it to enlighten us about the extraordinary experience that’s depicted here.
I don’t think this last point affects my rating of the book, and since I’ve reread it with pleasure, I highly recommend it. It shows an aspect of humanity, of how we can get to better know each other, that our post-(e)mail world is keeping hidden under layers of flashiness. Read it, and maybe read it again like I did, to see how the magic of sharing our dreams works.
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May 30, 2019MWSA Review
Two innocent lives are brought together in a war-inspired love affair through a letter addressed to “Any Soldier,” tacked to a bulletin board in a combat ready-room. The reader is drawn into a titillating experience reading personal revelations in private letters from a 23-year-old Marine Corps pilot. Moved by monotonous routine, he unpins and reads the letter out of boredom and curiosity. Lieutenant Jay Fox lives day to day at the incompetence of unseen enemy gunners, identified only by the character of their barrage attempting to destroy him and his A-6 Intruder before his bombs obliterate the “gooks.” He lives each dreary day to maybe die each night. Squadron mates do. Dullness through a daily routine prevails until he thoughtfully answers obviously silly questions from an innocent 19-year-old college student. Hesitantly, guardedly, an exchange begins. Ashley Beth Justice suffers the difficulties encountered away from home the first time. She writes about problems, and delights, in dealing with college roommates and routines experienced by a first-year college student having known and experienced little outside her rural South home.
At first, letters are innocent and probing. Then subtly over months, nearly every subject of life is explored, from the sharing sadness of losing a favored pet to questioning the war and politics. Flirtation, sex, and love intrude. Writing in increasingly personal levels, each writer elevates the other’s maturity and awareness in life. Respect and trust emerge. Frivolity and flights of silly imagination lighten gloomier thoughts and fears. Despite his conservative leanings and her staunch liberal attitude, each begins to understand life in grander perspective through understanding the other. Slight misunderstandings in expressed words or phrases create tensions as their relationship sometimes wavers, however, always to strengthen and grow—like a couple in a long-term affair. The ending is both surprising and understandable.
Descriptions of combat and life as a Marine Corps pilot in Vietnam are without flaw, obviously coming first-hand. Life as an emerging young woman away from home for the first time is authentic. Both voices ring true in language and tone through all topics.
The book’s presentation is somewhat unique with letters from Jay Fox printed out in faux typewriter font and Ashley Beth’s in computer-generated cursive font. This reality along with flawlessly spelled and formatted letters did bring forth some consternation when there appeared no strikeovers, errors, or corrections, as one would expect in real letters. Cursive also may offer some reading difficulty for young readers no longer taught cursive. A minor flaw was the author’s choice to combine both a literary fiction with military history with the inclusion of actual photos of individuals who were the foundation of the letters along with supplemental information on the real letter writers.
Unpinning a letter “To Any Soldier” from the bulletin board begins a delightful love story.
Review by Tom Beard (May 2019)
Two innocent lives are brought together in a war-inspired love affair through a letter addressed to “Any Soldier,” tacked to a bulletin board in a combat ready-room. The reader is drawn into a titillating experience reading personal revelations in private letters from a 23-year-old Marine Corps pilot. Moved by monotonous routine, he unpins and reads the letter out of boredom and curiosity. Lieutenant Jay Fox lives day to day at the incompetence of unseen enemy gunners, identified only by the character of their barrage attempting to destroy him and his A-6 Intruder before his bombs obliterate the “gooks.” He lives each dreary day to maybe die each night. Squadron mates do. Dullness through a daily routine prevails until he thoughtfully answers obviously silly questions from an innocent 19-year-old college student. Hesitantly, guardedly, an exchange begins. Ashley Beth Justice suffers the difficulties encountered away from home the first time. She writes about problems, and delights, in dealing with college roommates and routines experienced by a first-year college student having known and experienced little outside her rural South home.
At first, letters are innocent and probing. Then subtly over months, nearly every subject of life is explored, from the sharing sadness of losing a favored pet to questioning the war and politics. Flirtation, sex, and love intrude. Writing in increasingly personal levels, each writer elevates the other’s maturity and awareness in life. Respect and trust emerge. Frivolity and flights of silly imagination lighten gloomier thoughts and fears. Despite his conservative leanings and her staunch liberal attitude, each begins to understand life in grander perspective through understanding the other. Slight misunderstandings in expressed words or phrases create tensions as their relationship sometimes wavers, however, always to strengthen and grow—like a couple in a long-term affair. The ending is both surprising and understandable.
Descriptions of combat and life as a Marine Corps pilot in Vietnam are without flaw, obviously coming first-hand. Life as an emerging young woman away from home for the first time is authentic. Both voices ring true in language and tone through all topics.
The book’s presentation is somewhat unique with letters from Jay Fox printed out in faux typewriter font and Ashley Beth’s in computer-generated cursive font. This reality along with flawlessly spelled and formatted letters did bring forth some consternation when there appeared no strikeovers, errors, or corrections, as one would expect in real letters. Cursive also may offer some reading difficulty for young readers no longer taught cursive. A minor flaw was the author’s choice to combine both a literary fiction with military history with the inclusion of actual photos of individuals who were the foundation of the letters along with supplemental information on the real letter writers.
Unpinning a letter “To Any Soldier” from the bulletin board begins a delightful love story.
Review by Tom Beard (May 2019)
September 19, 2016
In January of 1968 North Viet Nam launched the Tet offensive and Ashley Beth mailed a letter To Any Soldier in Viet Nam. Jay finds the letter on a bulletin board. And so begins a yearlong correspondence between the two. Ashley Beth is a freshman with limited exposure to the world. Jay, a Marine officer and a pilot serving in Viet Nam, is a few years older. The story of these two individuals is told through their letters. Short on plot, the book is driven by the strength of the two characters.
If you were a college student at that time, you may have known Ashley Beth as I did. You may have been Ashley Beth. If you were airborne in Viet Nam, you probably knew Jay. If you knew either of them or someone like them you will recognize their stories. Ashley Beth explores New Testament ideas about a world greater than she understands. Jay introduces her to an almost foreign Old Testament attitude toward life.
Characters in novels are supposed to grow, and these two demonstrate growth in ways that endear both of them to the reader and in ways that neither they nor we could expect. It is that growth and willingness to explore new ideas that drives the book. Along the way, it paints scenes of life that many will recognize.
I was hooked early on by the naiveté that I recognized from my own college days in the late ‘60s. We had strong ideas and thought we would change the world. We thought we could predict our lives and carry out our plans. As I sat around the dining table in the college cafeteria with Ashley Beth and our friends, we thought the world was ours to shape. We had little understanding of how much we would be shaped by a war half a world away and by people like Jay who were caught up in it. We were people who came from different lives and different opportunities. Jay had more opportunities than most foot soldiers in that war. But the risks he faced were just as real and just as life threatening.
Some of us who viewed that war by television and newspapers still struggle to understand it. This book forced me again to grapple with the fact that I did not know anyone who went and did not know anyone who returned. It was only years later that I began to meet those who survived and returned. Ashley Beth, on the other hand, reached out To Any Soldier as a way of offering support from home. She found that the support was returned. The story of Ashley and Jay is a coming of age story that many of that era will recognize. It is a story of love. It is a story that helped me understand the Ashley Beth that I knew and the Ashley Beth that I didn’t. It helped me understand myself in the context of the time. It is story that continues to engage me after it has been read – a mark of a well told story.
If you were a college student at that time, you may have known Ashley Beth as I did. You may have been Ashley Beth. If you were airborne in Viet Nam, you probably knew Jay. If you knew either of them or someone like them you will recognize their stories. Ashley Beth explores New Testament ideas about a world greater than she understands. Jay introduces her to an almost foreign Old Testament attitude toward life.
Characters in novels are supposed to grow, and these two demonstrate growth in ways that endear both of them to the reader and in ways that neither they nor we could expect. It is that growth and willingness to explore new ideas that drives the book. Along the way, it paints scenes of life that many will recognize.
I was hooked early on by the naiveté that I recognized from my own college days in the late ‘60s. We had strong ideas and thought we would change the world. We thought we could predict our lives and carry out our plans. As I sat around the dining table in the college cafeteria with Ashley Beth and our friends, we thought the world was ours to shape. We had little understanding of how much we would be shaped by a war half a world away and by people like Jay who were caught up in it. We were people who came from different lives and different opportunities. Jay had more opportunities than most foot soldiers in that war. But the risks he faced were just as real and just as life threatening.
Some of us who viewed that war by television and newspapers still struggle to understand it. This book forced me again to grapple with the fact that I did not know anyone who went and did not know anyone who returned. It was only years later that I began to meet those who survived and returned. Ashley Beth, on the other hand, reached out To Any Soldier as a way of offering support from home. She found that the support was returned. The story of Ashley and Jay is a coming of age story that many of that era will recognize. It is a story of love. It is a story that helped me understand the Ashley Beth that I knew and the Ashley Beth that I didn’t. It helped me understand myself in the context of the time. It is story that continues to engage me after it has been read – a mark of a well told story.
February 17, 2021
My review begins in the book-of-letters style for "To Any Soldier: A Novel of Vietnam Letters."
= = = = = = = = =
Dear Co-Author Kathryn Watson Quigg,
Brilliant! Your letters communicated the sprouting of a flower, the search for understanding, and the striving mind of youth.
Fondly,
Reader
= = = = = = = = =
Dear Co-Author G. C. Hendricks,
Equally brilliant! Your letters remained focused, cut like a scalpel, and expose vulnerabilities below a hardened surface.
Faithfully,
Reader
= = = = = = = = =
"To Any Soldier" is an in-the-moment work. As a reader, "you are there" inside the life of a late-teens woman through her letters to a random soldier in Vietnam, feeling her daily evolution toward the individual she wants to discover, then become. "You are there" with her Marine pilot pen pal, sharing his daily routine, rigid attitudes, and glimpses of a future he can't be confident he will live to see.
I cannot remember a book like this. There is a free flow of language that recalls Thomas Wolfe. There are two stories likely to merge into one, recalling QB VII by Leon Uris.
You want to know where this story ends, but the journey through these epistles is to be savored. There are historical attributes, but this is an unfiltered look into two personal tales. It evolves with excellent pace, neither dwelling where it needn't nor skipping frivolously about.
A broad audience will appreciate this novel. Long before the last page, you will want to share it with friends. Just a few examples include those who have been letter writers, those who have searched inside themselves, persons who have shared feelings without knowing how another will respond, and those who have experienced the uncertainty of being away in battle or just away from home.
I enjoyed "To Any Soldier: A Novel of Vietnam Letters" by G. C. Hendricks and Kathryn Quigg.
= = = = = = = = =
Dear Co-Author Kathryn Watson Quigg,
Brilliant! Your letters communicated the sprouting of a flower, the search for understanding, and the striving mind of youth.
Fondly,
Reader
= = = = = = = = =
Dear Co-Author G. C. Hendricks,
Equally brilliant! Your letters remained focused, cut like a scalpel, and expose vulnerabilities below a hardened surface.
Faithfully,
Reader
= = = = = = = = =
"To Any Soldier" is an in-the-moment work. As a reader, "you are there" inside the life of a late-teens woman through her letters to a random soldier in Vietnam, feeling her daily evolution toward the individual she wants to discover, then become. "You are there" with her Marine pilot pen pal, sharing his daily routine, rigid attitudes, and glimpses of a future he can't be confident he will live to see.
I cannot remember a book like this. There is a free flow of language that recalls Thomas Wolfe. There are two stories likely to merge into one, recalling QB VII by Leon Uris.
You want to know where this story ends, but the journey through these epistles is to be savored. There are historical attributes, but this is an unfiltered look into two personal tales. It evolves with excellent pace, neither dwelling where it needn't nor skipping frivolously about.
A broad audience will appreciate this novel. Long before the last page, you will want to share it with friends. Just a few examples include those who have been letter writers, those who have searched inside themselves, persons who have shared feelings without knowing how another will respond, and those who have experienced the uncertainty of being away in battle or just away from home.
I enjoyed "To Any Soldier: A Novel of Vietnam Letters" by G. C. Hendricks and Kathryn Quigg.
March 17, 2016
To Any Soldier was highly enjoyable to read for many reasons.
It follows the journeys of Jay Fox who is an attack pilot fighting in Vietnam and Ashley Justice who is in college in North Carolina when they first start writing to each other.
Over time the letters become more personal and heartfelt as they explore their views from both sides of the conflict and talk about their family lives, their current adventures and their hopes for the future. Some of their stories were also quite humorous!
It brought back fond memories for me of writing to my brother when he was in the Australian Army and how much our letters came to mean to each other.
I loved the way both characters were so relateable and the way their minds opened up to new viewpoints and attitudes without losing themselves in the process. They were both brave and daring in their own ways and there was a frank honesty with each other that strengthened their connection.
I have to say I was sad when I got to the end of the book because I wanted to keep following them to find out what happened next!
It follows the journeys of Jay Fox who is an attack pilot fighting in Vietnam and Ashley Justice who is in college in North Carolina when they first start writing to each other.
Over time the letters become more personal and heartfelt as they explore their views from both sides of the conflict and talk about their family lives, their current adventures and their hopes for the future. Some of their stories were also quite humorous!
It brought back fond memories for me of writing to my brother when he was in the Australian Army and how much our letters came to mean to each other.
I loved the way both characters were so relateable and the way their minds opened up to new viewpoints and attitudes without losing themselves in the process. They were both brave and daring in their own ways and there was a frank honesty with each other that strengthened their connection.
I have to say I was sad when I got to the end of the book because I wanted to keep following them to find out what happened next!
January 6, 2017
I had the pleasure of meeting Kathryn in May 2016 on a trip (which was lovely) and even better is the time I got to spend with her. She is so passionate and full of life.
On to my review! (no spoilers)
I was a little put off by some of the derogatory terms used in the book BUT it is important to keep in mind the time frame in the book and common language at that time.
The book brings the reader back to a time when paper letters where the primary form of communication, in contrast to today when I can email someone and often get a response in minutes. I can imagine the characters waiting for the letters, debating to send another or wait until a response arrives. It was fun an interesting contrast between these characters that are the same age yet experiencing such different life events. I liked the back and forth and building friendship between the characters.
I did for sure have some tears at the end.
On to my review! (no spoilers)
I was a little put off by some of the derogatory terms used in the book BUT it is important to keep in mind the time frame in the book and common language at that time.
The book brings the reader back to a time when paper letters where the primary form of communication, in contrast to today when I can email someone and often get a response in minutes. I can imagine the characters waiting for the letters, debating to send another or wait until a response arrives. It was fun an interesting contrast between these characters that are the same age yet experiencing such different life events. I liked the back and forth and building friendship between the characters.
I did for sure have some tears at the end.
June 2, 2018
To Any Soldier brings the reader into two different worlds, using a format that is sorely lacking in today's society: through letter writing. As someone who did not grow up during this generation, I felt as though I were really there--in both places, back in the States and in Vietnam, as well in as in Ashley and Jay's heads, respectively. Although it's fiction, many of the situations are based in reality, and written without getting too bogged down in jargon. The included photographs made everything seem even more real. These two characters will continue to stay with you long after you finish reading the book. Highly recommend.
April 22, 2019
Although I was very young during the Vietnam War, the letters portrayed what it was like for those fighting and a young and naive college girl. I was drawn to the 60's version of match.com, through the lost art of letter writing or painting a picture with words. Jay seemed much older than he was (and maybe the war made him seem that way) and Ashley Beth grew into an independent and strong woman during their letter writing. Neither authors were at that tender age when the book was written but they made us feel that they were the characters Jay and AB. I enjoyed the letter writing addressing and salutations in their responses.
May 12, 2016
I received this book for free from goodreads first reads.
I didn't enjoy the style of writing of this book. I assumed it was real letters and when I started reading I found out it was fictional letters based on true events. The facts were there and the storyline was somewhat interesting but it wasn't what I was expecting.
I didn't enjoy the style of writing of this book. I assumed it was real letters and when I started reading I found out it was fictional letters based on true events. The facts were there and the storyline was somewhat interesting but it wasn't what I was expecting.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 13, 2018
It is so very heart warming and so real.
I just finished the book and have tears in my eyes. There are so many lines I reread because they go right to the soul. This book is so touching and so real to the times.
I just finished the book and have tears in my eyes. There are so many lines I reread because they go right to the soul. This book is so touching and so real to the times.
July 28, 2016
I loved it! I rated 4 stars only because I wanted more! It was a pleasure meeting Ms. Quigg and her husband--thank you for sharing such wonderful stories and background for the book.
June 26, 2017
I loved it.
This was my generation. I know these people, my heart will remember them in the weeks to come. The ending was very believable,
This was my generation. I know these people, my heart will remember them in the weeks to come. The ending was very believable,
May 30, 2018
Meh...
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