Finding Pete: Rediscovering the Brother I Lost in Vietnam

by Jill Hunting

Two days after Jill Hunting turned fifteen, she lost her only brother, a volunteer with International Voluntary Services and one of the first civilian casualties of the Vietnam War. News broadcasts and headlines announced to the world that Pete had been led into an ambush by friends. When Jill's mother told her that Pete's letters home had all been destroyed in a basement flood, the connection between Jill and her brother was lost forever―or so she thought. Decades later, 175 letters surfaced. Through them, and the sweethearts and many friends who had never forgotten Pete, Jill came to know him again.

Finding Pete is one of the great, untold true stories of an escalating war and a young man caught in its sights. This personalized account of a critical moment in U.S. history is the moving story of an altruistic youth who personifies what America lost in Vietnam. It is also a portrait of a family's struggle with loss, a mother's damaging grief, and, most of all, a sister's quest to solve a mystery and recover the connection with her brother. Includes a reader's guide.

324 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2009

About the author

Released February 2022 by the University of Oklahoma Press: A BIRD WITH TEETH AND A DINOSAUR IN THE FAMILY by Jill Hunting

In 1872, a young graduate of Yale University named Thomas Russell unearthed the bones of an 83,000,000-year-old dinosaur in western Kansas. The rare fossil, an avian dinosaur with teeth and flightless wings, proved that birds evolved from reptiles. More than a century later, Russell’s great-granddaughter set out to retrace her ancestor’s forgotten expedition. Part detective history, part memoir, FOR WANT OF WINGS is Jill’s captivating account of her journey into prehistory, national history, and family history.

A former food and wine editor, Jill is the editor of the STONE EDGE FARM COOKBOOK, winner of the Book of the Year and Best First Cookbook/Julia Child awards from the International Association of Culinary Professionals. She is the author of FINDING PETE: REDISCOVERING THE BROTHER I LOST IN VIETNAM, the story of Jill's investigation into her brother's death in Vietnam in 1965. Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's Vietnam War series for PBS featured Pete in episode 2.

Reviews

[Eleanor · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got a lot more than I expected from this book - It is so lovingly written - and a search for a lost sibling provides more than just a memoir - I also think it helps that I had just read a novel "The Lotus Eaters" by Tatjana Soli which helped me understand more of what was going on in Viet Nam and how the Vietnamese could be on more than one side ... survival and survival of their families was the simple answer, however, it was far, far more complex ... I recommend BOTH these books, and would start with the Lotus Eaters ....