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Never has there
been a time --
or a war --
in which there was such a
degree of controversy.
Vietnam was an undeclared war,
with no front lines
against an elusive enemy
which lingered on for ten years.
The war cost more than $140 billion,
drove two presidents from office,
and provoked the largest popular movement against U.S. government
policy in our history.
The cost in human lives to South Vietnam was
200,000 soldiers killed, and
an estimated half-million civilians killed.
North Vietnamese costs and casualty figures are unknown.
2.5 million Americans served.
58,196 were killed.
300,000 were injured.
More than 800,000 continue to suffer
from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders
which have resulted
in many suicides, incarcerations,
and in alcohol and drug abuse.
It is reported that since the end of the war,
three times the number of vets
who died in combat have taken their own lives.
More than 140,000 are totally disabled,
cannot work and receive disability payments
from the US government.
The Boston Shelter for Homeless Veterans
estimates that one-third of the homeless
are veterans, and 25% are Vietnam veterans.
The Vietnam War left
a legacy of bitterness and unacknowledged grief. It divided us
and haunts us still; not only in the hearts and minds of veterans
and their families, but in our collective unresolved grief over
sacrificing 58,196 Americans in the only war America ever lost.
Because grieving is
so forbidden in our culture and the shame associated with this
war is so great, veterans, their families, and the families of
deceased veterans have been thwarted in their grieving process.
This uncommunalized grief is a major reason why there are so
many severe long-term psychological injuries from the Vietnam
War. Unresolved grief manifests in a host of psychosomatic symptoms
such as depression, fear, anxiety, compulsions, addictions and
other health-related maladies.
There are an estimated
18,000 Vietnam widows. An estimated 20,000 children were left
fatherless by the war, and everyone who died in the war had parents
and possibly siblings, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews.
The figures are staggering.
Everyone was touched by that war, whether they fought in the
jungles of Vietnam, resisted in the streets of our American cities
or simply watched the war on television.
Grief Denied - A
Vietnam Widow's Story,
the first widow's book to come out of the Vietnam War, tells
the riveting story of how the author came out from under the
suffocating weight of her own silence to find personal expression,
a sense of liberation, and a renewal of faith. This book is a
deeply moving, inspirational memoir which will provide and promote
healing for the unresolved grief still haunting many Americans.
Grief Denied: A Vietnam Widow's Story, is available in soft cover for $14.95
, plus $3.00 shipping/handling (+$1.00 S/H for each additional book). Shipping is by Media Mail. (California residents add $0.82 sales tax per book.)
Please contact Pauline Laurent by e-mail at
(Please type the spam-protected address into your email program)
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