Ask the Author: Joshua Bowe
Answered Questions (2)
Joshua Bowe
I am currently working with a voice-over professional on producing an audiobook to published on Audible. Right now, I'm scouring my book for all of the oddly spelled names and places so I can provide guidance on the pronunciations. Hearing your own words read aloud, and in dramatic fashion, by someone else, is actually quite captivating. I was so entranced, in fact, that I almost let the dinner I was preparing burn while listening to the initial "audition" recording from one of my book's chapters!
Joshua Bowe
At first, I didn't really consider writing a "book", as it were. I just wanted to record a memoir of sorts about what my dad experienced during his year in Vietnam. I talked to him about it, and most of what he remembered actually fit onto a couple sheets of paper - not enough material for a book, I thought. Once I started researching the history of his battalion, the 5th Battalion, 7th Cavalry, I started learning a lot more about what they actually did. I looked up information in the National Archives regarding all the men killed in action in his company (Alpha Company, 5/7th Cav), and then looked up their names on several Vietnam memorial websites, where fellow soldiers, family members, and hometown friends had posted their remembrances of the fallen. There were some very compelling stories posted, and from there, the book began to take shape. Later, my dad dug out all of the letters he wrote home to his mom while in Vietnam - there were over 100 letters. After that, I began contacting several former troopers from his old company, and much was added to the story as I compiled and intertwined their accounts of their many battles, as well as their voyage to Vietnam aboard the USNS Gaffey, into the story. By the time it was done, I had twenty-one chapters written. To say the least, I got carried away!
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