Our Brother's Keeper

Few Vietnam books treat the effects of a U.S. soldier's death on his family. This muscularly written, starkly honest memoir fills a significant gap. Smith (Fatal Treasure), an Atlanta Journal-Constitution editor, was 22 years old, the oldest of six children, when his beloved younger brother Jeff was killed by a Vietcong rocket during a firefight near the village of Mai Xa Thi on March 7, 1968. Jeff's death tore the fragile family apart: their mother retreated into severe alcoholism and an all-encompassing fixation on Jeff (who had been her favorite); their emotionally distant father-a WWII Marine beset by postwar demons-left the family for another woman. Smith's other brothers and sisters suffered severe and lasting psychological problems, and Smith himself-while outwardly coping well by marrying, having children and working his way up the journalism ladder-became an emotional cripple bent on self-destruction: "Not only did I thoroughly embrace alcohol, but I also became kind of psychotic." Smith tells his story with bluntness and conviction, including what becomes a cathartic happy ending when he and two of his brother's fellow Marines make a journey to Vietnam in 2001 to visit the spot where Jeff died. --Publ. In Our Brother's Keeper, Jedwin Smith examines who his brother was, how he died, and why his death has had such a devastating impact to this day. The book is both the story and the outcome of a quest that took the author across the United States to visit siblings he hadn't seen in decades as well as former Marines who had been at Jeff's side on that awful day so many years before. Finally, the journey took the author to Vietnam, where he confronted a former Viet Cong commander. The encounter was chilling, extraordinary, and life-changing. Our Brother's Keeper is more than a moving and beautifully written family saga of the Vietnam War and its bitter and ongoing aftermath. It is also the story of how America has either been in denial or in recovery in many important ways ever since the Vietnam War. Most of all, it is an inspiring personal tale of loss and healing, anger and forgiveness, self-discovery-and the transcendent power of love.