I started thinking about writing this book as a memoir of my experience as a young soldier in the Vietnam War, beginning in November, 1967 until November, 1968. It was to have been an effort to relate to my family, especially to my children, what it was like to have fought during the war. As I started trying to recall my experiences, I found that I could remember only a few scattered details. Somehow, it seems as if my entire life can be encapsulated in just a few memorable snapshots in a photograph album. So the book became not only a memoir of war, but, a memoir of my life, and a reflection upon the war; my thoughts and feelings about what was going on, during the war; my life after the war; and how the two would became inseparable. I hope that in my doing so that those, who read this account, may understand a little bit better how my entire life, and perhaps that of my comrades, was influenced by events of that one year in Vietnam, in service to my country. In this book, I have attempted to share many of the highlights and memories of my life, growing up in Ohio, and my travels throughout the country, as they might reflect upon who I am and the decisions that we have made. I am convinced that those memories of my life are just as much a part of me, as my life today is but a consummation of the past, the present, and perhaps the future.
About the Author: Charles Robinson has a degree in botany from Miami University and in forest management from Oregon State University. He is now retired after a diversified 30 year career in several occupations, each with a common thread relating directly or indirectly to the natural resource and environmental fields. He spent his childhood in Chillicothe, Ohio and has been privileged to have traveled with his extended family in forty-five of the fifty states of the United States and at least three of the Canadian provinces. He served for three years in the United States Army, including one year in Vietnam. He relates how the stress of having served in Vietnam and the sights and fears that he endured during the war may have impacted his life today. In a sometimes serious and sometimes humorous manner, he tells the story of his early home life in Ohio, the trips, his memories, and of his life raising his family in Oregon and Washington. Today he lives with his wife Delma in Prosser, Washington. They have three grown children and two grandchildren.