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The Bridge
A War That Won’t Let Go. A Memory That Can’t Be Buried. A Story That Refuses to Fade.The Bridge is not your typical Vietnam War novel. Alan Ramias weaves together fiction, raw memory, poetic fragments, and documentary realism to deliver an unvarnished account of what it meant to serve, survive, and remember.
Moving between gritty squad banter, haunting lyricism, and the quiet desperation of men unprepared for the long shadows of war, this is a novel unafraid to dig beneath the skin.
Through the eyes of Brannick, Hanson, Mills, Sergeant Creek, Lieutenant Chester, and a cast of characters as scarred as the landscape, Ramias drops us into the humid confusion of Vietnam’s Mekong Delta.
It’s a world where bravado is a mask, every day is borrowed, and the line between heroism and survival blurs.
Here, killing isn’t always the hardest thing to do—sometimes, it’s just living through another day, or trying to hold onto a sliver of humanity.
But The Bridge isn’t just about the jungle, the firefights, or the numbing routine.It’s about the aftermath. The memories boxed up and shoved aside, the medals handed off to children, the men who return home but never really come back. It’s about the war’s the guilt, the atonement, the broken friendships, and the desperate need to tell the truth—even when no one wants to listen.
Blending sharp dialogue, evocative poetry, and even transcripts from an unfinished war documentary, Ramias refuses to glorify or simplify.
He gives us the Vietnam experience as it was lived—muddy, confusing, bitter, and sometimes darkly funny. In its closing pages, the story moves to a Chicago film studio, where a grieving father’s search for answers about his son’s death becomes a quiet indictment of what’s lost in war—and what’s lost when the cameras stop rolling.
For readers of Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried , Karl Marlantes’ Matterhorn , and anyone searching for a Vietnam novel that doesn’t flinch, The Bridge is an unforgettable testament to memory, survival, and the bridges—real and imagined—that we build just to get through.
Moving between gritty squad banter, haunting lyricism, and the quiet desperation of men unprepared for the long shadows of war, this is a novel unafraid to dig beneath the skin.
Through the eyes of Brannick, Hanson, Mills, Sergeant Creek, Lieutenant Chester, and a cast of characters as scarred as the landscape, Ramias drops us into the humid confusion of Vietnam’s Mekong Delta.
It’s a world where bravado is a mask, every day is borrowed, and the line between heroism and survival blurs.
Here, killing isn’t always the hardest thing to do—sometimes, it’s just living through another day, or trying to hold onto a sliver of humanity.
But The Bridge isn’t just about the jungle, the firefights, or the numbing routine.It’s about the aftermath. The memories boxed up and shoved aside, the medals handed off to children, the men who return home but never really come back. It’s about the war’s the guilt, the atonement, the broken friendships, and the desperate need to tell the truth—even when no one wants to listen.
Blending sharp dialogue, evocative poetry, and even transcripts from an unfinished war documentary, Ramias refuses to glorify or simplify.
He gives us the Vietnam experience as it was lived—muddy, confusing, bitter, and sometimes darkly funny. In its closing pages, the story moves to a Chicago film studio, where a grieving father’s search for answers about his son’s death becomes a quiet indictment of what’s lost in war—and what’s lost when the cameras stop rolling.
For readers of Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried , Karl Marlantes’ Matterhorn , and anyone searching for a Vietnam novel that doesn’t flinch, The Bridge is an unforgettable testament to memory, survival, and the bridges—real and imagined—that we build just to get through.
- GenresHistorical Fiction
120 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 20, 2024
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 21, 2025
The layout of the story is confusing. Parts of the transcript reads like people saying nothing much, I'm not sure how it advances the story. The writing is good and the topic is compelling.
Displaying 1 of 1 review