Thank you so very much for the books and your wonderful inscriptions. Last night I read until 2:30 because I was so excited about starting the book, and then I couldn’t put it down. I’ve always been interested in Vietnam and your writing is helping me see—even feel—the emotions and the contradictions in feelings when one fights a war—or is left behind. I can’t wait to read more and, also, to talk about the book with friends and relatives after they’ve read it, too.

                                                                        Wendy C.

                                                                        Mansfield, CT

Your book helped me better understand the personal hardships on military families of prolonged separations without adequate opportunities for timely quality communications. . . . I thought your character development and evolution was superb. I wanted the book to continue.

                                                                        Clinton J.

                                                                        Atherton, CA

I think you have written an extremely fine book. It is powerful, thought provoking, and haunting. The ending was a real shocker . . . . The combat material is riveting, I felt like I was in the cockpit with those guys. The material on the POWs is really powerful as well.  The entire book, of course, deals with what a military career and war does to people and especially to families. These are topics that should be in the minds of many military families again right now.

                                                                        Nancy S.

                                                                        Sacramento, CA

I stayed up until late in the evening reading your novel . . . Then I arose at 4 A.M. to finish it. That illustrates how engaging I found it. You have certainly initiated me into the life of a combat pilot in Vietnam. I wish every citizen of our country could read your version of that, and the passages of the imprisonment. . . . The novel is rich in so many ways, I can see it being required reading at the Air Force Academy where it surely would provoke much discussion, not only among the cadets, but also in the larger community.

                                                                        Peg M.

                                                                        Louisville, KY

I have just finished “What the Captain Really Means,” a classic the likes of which I have never read before. . . . I’m not into reading novels . . . [but] I sat hour after hour reading chapter after chapter with an interest I have never shown in a novel.

The way this novel was written fascinated me as it went chapter after chapter from flying or war to what home life was like, good or bad. I don’t have words to explain further. Only to say, WOW that was a good read.

                                                                        Don L.

                                                                        Carrollton, TX

I re-lived Saigon through your Alex . . . . I loved the “strap hangers” at a briefing but you didn’t include PACAF and 7/13 AF people who arrived at TSN near the end of the month, stayed until after the first of the next, and went home with a two-month income tax deduction. You didn’t weigh your story down with such trivia.

VN wasn’t your real story—Alex, Merrilane, and their dysfunctional family were.

                                                                        Sam G.

                                                                        Petaluma, CA

I finished your book, not because of the action scenes, which were fabulous, not because of the thought provoking ideological dialectic, or your superior understanding of the female condition (thanks to your wonderful wife?). It wasn’t a function of the corporeal pieces and parts that I found myself affected, it was because of the genuine nature of your contribution as a writer. That is, the sense of personal struggle with the insincerity fostered within powerful institutions.

I know two things: 1) You can write. I think that means you can suffer in good faith, with many others (myself included), exposing yourself to a lesser world. And 2) You have something very important to say. I wonder why you’re not teaching ethics?

                                                                        Rick W.

                                                                        Cincinnati, OH