Leaving the Alamo, Texas Stories After Vietnam

by Dick Stanley

Here are sixteen stories of middle-aged Texans, combat veterans of Vietnam, who are not in prison, panhandling, or sleeping under bridges. For the most part, they’ve learned to live with the judgments of their non-serving peers and the war that still goes on in their heads, although one also has murder on his mind.******* Dick Stanley is a retired daily newspaper staff writer in Austin, Texas. He fought in Vietnam in 1969 as an Army lieutenant and light-infantry senior advisor to a South Vietnamese militia unit in the I Corps tactical zone.

191 pages, Paperback

First published September 6, 2006

Reviews

[Al · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took me a while to read all 16 stories in this collection. There was no need to rush through, after all, and many are intense, and worthy of reflection. In my case, I've been content to put the unpleasantness of the Vietnam era behind me, and several of these beautifully written stories brought it back so vividly that apportioning them out over time seemed a good idea for me.

They deal in general with present-day Texan veterans whose lives have been marked forever by their wartime experiences. The styles and concepts vary. The title story involves a Vietnam veteran and a ghost from the Alamo. Others experiment with point of view. A few are conventional in narrative design. All explore, however, the long-term effects of war on the human psyche.

I can't imagine that many of today's soldiers would be eager to reflect on the experiences of their elders, but perhaps they should. Wars will always be with us, it seems, and contemplating the perspectives offered by those who have gone before can only be healthy, both for a democracy and those who pay such a high price to support it.

[Lillie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Since I recently edited I Always Sit with My Back to the Wall: Managing Traumatic Stress and Combat PTSD and recently reviewed Breaking the Code: A Father's Secret, a Daughter's Journey, and the Question That Changed Everything, both about combat PTSD, I recognized PTSD symptoms in some of the Vietnam vets in these short stories. Vietnam veterans will probably understand and relate to the stories more than those of us who don't have those experiences. I liked that the stories were generally about people from or in Texas.