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A Temporary Sort of Peace
Growing up in Princeton, Indiana, during the 1950s, Jim McGarrah spent his days pursuing dreams of athletic glory on the baseball diamond, becoming captain of his high school's baseball team, and winning, for a time, the affections of a blond cheerleader, escorting her to dates at the local drive-in in his 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air. Although he earned a baseball scholarship to college, McGarrah flunked out of school in May 1967 and, on the way home, enlisted for service in the U.S. Marine Corps, causing his father, a veteran of World War II, to warn him he had no idea what he had just done. In his memoir, McGarrah, today a poet and writer from southern Indiana, examines in detail his peacetime life in Indiana, his indoctrination into the cult of the marines as a fledgling warrior in basic training at Parris Island in South Carolina, and his introduction to the life of a combat soldier in Vietnam observing bulging body bags at an air base's morgue in Da Nang and going to his first assignment armed with a malfunctioning M-16 rifle. Many years later, the former private first class, serial number 2371586, realized that for him, home had become "the jungles of Vietnam, the one place where life was at its best and worst simultaneously every minute of every day." The book also includes the author's days with a small marine Combat Action Group trying to win the hearts and minds of Vietnamese in the village of Gia Le, his wounding by shrapnel from a rocket-propelled grenade during the height of the Tet Offensive, and dealing with his war memories back home in the United States. In August 2005, at the age of fifty-seven, McGarrah returned to Vietnam, visiting the sites of his former battles with his son and sharing memories of the past and future with a Vietnamese poet in a graceful peace ceremony in Hue.
251 pages, Hardcover
First published September 7, 2007
14 people want to read
About the author
Jim McGarrah
17 books30 followersJim McGarrah's poems, essays, and stories have appeared in many literary magazines over the past decade and the author of ten books. His play, Split Second Timing, received a Kennedy Center ACTF Award in 2001. He is the author of five books of poetry, Running the Voodoo Down (2003), When the Stars Go Dark (2009), Breakfast at Denny's (2013), The Truth About Mangoes (2016), and A Balancing Act: New and Selected Poems 1998-2018, a critically acclaimed memoir of the Vietnam War entitled A Temporary Sort of Peace that won the 2010 Legacy Nonfiction Award from the Eric Hoffer Foundation and the sequel entitled The End of an Era. His nonfiction account of life as a horse trainer, Off Track, was published in 2015 and Misdemeanor Outlaw followed in 2017. Jim is also co-editor of Home Again: Essays and Memoirs from Indiana and a founding editor of RopeWalk Press, as well as the former managing editor of Southern Indiana Review.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 5, 2021
McGarrah’s memoir not only reads like a novel and jaunts along quickly to its end (there are many page-turning stories in this book), but it has the added benefit of a real-life-narrator admitting vulnerabilities and sharing hard-won wisdom with his reader throughout.
McGarrah begins his story in the present moment, as a Vietnam veteran arriving at the VA Clinic. The reader is quickly introduced to the lasting effects of the narrator’s experience as a soldier in Vietnam. McGarrah juxtaposes the realities of physical and psychological treatment for war veterans in America with visceral flashbacks of combat. It is a little unnerving but McGarrah swiftly brings the reader back in time to his childhood in Indiana, where we get the beginnings of his story but also a healthy dose of humor. In this way McGarrah balances the horrors of his story with laughter and a sense of shared experienced between reader and writer. This is a hallmark of the entire book and one of the reasons why it was so enjoyable to read.
The first quarter of the book highlights the main developments in the writer’s life prior to Vietnam. The mid-section is life in Vietnam—a well-plotted string of stories about the smells and tastes of a new culture, life at camp, frightfully real action scenes of combat, and the psychological tolls that were taken upon the men and women struggling to survive on both sides. Here McGarrah shows his prowess as a poet as well as a man of humor. Describing his mess hall food as “some kind of roasted pseudo-beef with huge globs of mashed potatoes drowned in a dark brown gelatinous substance labeled gravy” offers a necessary respite from the terror of combat and violent death.
But even in these scenes, McGarrah manages to make his prose beautiful, as if to contain the gore and violence in a digestible format for the reader: “The trees dipped and swirled with the monsoon breeze. The bamboo played a tango so hypnotic and hallow I hardly noticed another whistle, the harsh hiss of a RPG ripping through the melody like off-key fusion jazz. Sheep must have heard it, though, because he opened his arms wide and embraced the rocket. It entered him and became him, sending all unnecessary attachments in different directions. Arms flew east and west and his head shot skyward as if it were a basketball some referee had tossed for the opening jump. Damp grit splattered my fatigues and face.”
In the final quarter of the book, McGarrah relates his experience in the Tet Offensive and his resulting wounds. He also shares his time in the hospital with other wounded vets, exploring the psychological impact of war, and his return to American life. What is so striking about the last part of the book, though, is when McGarrah returns to Vietnam in 2005. Here he meets the honored Vietnamese poet Vo Que, and together they create a new relationship based on peace, respect, and understanding. The photographs in this book are outstanding, and the last scene in the book will make you gasp.
McGarrah begins his story in the present moment, as a Vietnam veteran arriving at the VA Clinic. The reader is quickly introduced to the lasting effects of the narrator’s experience as a soldier in Vietnam. McGarrah juxtaposes the realities of physical and psychological treatment for war veterans in America with visceral flashbacks of combat. It is a little unnerving but McGarrah swiftly brings the reader back in time to his childhood in Indiana, where we get the beginnings of his story but also a healthy dose of humor. In this way McGarrah balances the horrors of his story with laughter and a sense of shared experienced between reader and writer. This is a hallmark of the entire book and one of the reasons why it was so enjoyable to read.
The first quarter of the book highlights the main developments in the writer’s life prior to Vietnam. The mid-section is life in Vietnam—a well-plotted string of stories about the smells and tastes of a new culture, life at camp, frightfully real action scenes of combat, and the psychological tolls that were taken upon the men and women struggling to survive on both sides. Here McGarrah shows his prowess as a poet as well as a man of humor. Describing his mess hall food as “some kind of roasted pseudo-beef with huge globs of mashed potatoes drowned in a dark brown gelatinous substance labeled gravy” offers a necessary respite from the terror of combat and violent death.
But even in these scenes, McGarrah manages to make his prose beautiful, as if to contain the gore and violence in a digestible format for the reader: “The trees dipped and swirled with the monsoon breeze. The bamboo played a tango so hypnotic and hallow I hardly noticed another whistle, the harsh hiss of a RPG ripping through the melody like off-key fusion jazz. Sheep must have heard it, though, because he opened his arms wide and embraced the rocket. It entered him and became him, sending all unnecessary attachments in different directions. Arms flew east and west and his head shot skyward as if it were a basketball some referee had tossed for the opening jump. Damp grit splattered my fatigues and face.”
In the final quarter of the book, McGarrah relates his experience in the Tet Offensive and his resulting wounds. He also shares his time in the hospital with other wounded vets, exploring the psychological impact of war, and his return to American life. What is so striking about the last part of the book, though, is when McGarrah returns to Vietnam in 2005. Here he meets the honored Vietnamese poet Vo Que, and together they create a new relationship based on peace, respect, and understanding. The photographs in this book are outstanding, and the last scene in the book will make you gasp.
July 31, 2014
This is an excellent memoir by a fantastic writer. This book recently won the Eric Hoffer Award. McGarrah is a gifted poet, but this account of his childhood in Indiana to fighting in Viet Nam to visiting Viet Nam in 2004 far surpasses anything he has ever written in the past. McGarrah takes the reader on a journey, a journey they will not soon forget. I recommend the book highly. If you are a fan of memoirs or a fan of the craft of writing you must go straight to the book store and add this book to your collection. I promise this is a purchase you will not regret.
March 8, 2016
Bought this book for my college English 102 class and loved this book. Also got to meet the author of the book and he signed my copy
July 18, 2021
Very much enjoyed this memoir. He makes you think and understand more about and understand more about the Vietnam war from a vet's perspective. You also understand what's yeah effective. You also understand why some of the vets don't want to talk about some of the crap that they've been through.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews