GOD, ME AND THE BLACKHORSE

A devout member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church remembers his time in the military during the Vietnam War.

Debut author Beaven opens his story with an in-depth account of his training at Fort Bragg in North Carolina and his subsequent deployment to Vietnam. Right away, he notes how his service differed from that of most other young men in the 1960s, as he was a noncombatant Army medic who swore on religious principles never to carry or fire a weapon: “I went to Nam with religious goals and standards that were far different than most,” he writes. “I still have them.” The book’s latter parts tell the story of his time at war, and thanks to the author’s simple, accessible prose style, these memories have a more appealing immediacy than what one might find in a broader-sweep narrative history of wartime. Beaven is a natural storyteller, and some of his anecdotes show the polish that comes from frequent repetition over the years. He also offers a big-picture view of events with a blunt sense of humor that’s very appealing: “There was a great deal of fatalism in the service. ‘When my number comes up, I’m going to go.’ Needless to say, this is all hogwash….I never saw anyone stand up in the middle of a firefight and say, ‘Nyay, nyah, you can’t hit me.’ ” As he presents an insider’s view of what mucking through the hostile countryside was like, he often reveals small, engaging details; he mentions, for example, how troops were issued baseball-style caps but wore floppy slouch hats instead, both for their functionality and because they “made you look like a combat veteran instead of some camp jockey.” Beaven received decorations for his service, but his memoir benefits greatly from his just-one-of-the-guys humility.

A highly readable, boots-on-the-ground war memoir by a noncombatant.