War and the Arc of Human Experience

I really enjoyed my friend Glenn Petersen's memoir of growing up in California, running away from home, joining the Navy, serving on an aircraft carrier and flying combat missions off the coast of Vietnam, coming home, graduate school in anthropology (where I met Glenn), academic life, marriage, fatherhood, divorce, etc. I saw a lot of parallels with my own life though I made different choices along the way. Glenn's service in Vietnam continues to keep him up at night (and drives him to seek treatment for PTSD from the VA). An absorbing tale of life in times that were difficult for us all.

Glenn Petersen photographed the anti-aircraft defenses of Ha Noi as an enlisted man in the back of an aircraft.On the way home, larking about from his carrier, he first saw a lagoon with outrigger canoes and thatch buildings, the way of life he has spent his own life getting to know, representing, and for some time now advising as these settlers of the Pacific have advanced in sovereignty and now offer the world system their politics of governance in rising seas.Glenn represents to me the working class vigor the expansion of our university after 1945 brought into our own thought, and the effect Vietnamese nationalism had on the world system, my topic as an ethnographer of the peoples of Viet Nam.He has now turned his own attention in how this all has worked. It's all new, even to me, news that will stay news, a monumental work of art that any may climb to see the world around.

Experiencing the stress of life in a war zone isn't limited to soldiers in battle. Petersen's exploration of what he calls "everyday danger" will resonate with anyone seeking to understand the origins, complexity, and long reach of trauma in their own lives and in the lives of loved ones. A daring, subtle, engaging work by an outstanding writer.