John Ketwig
Author of ...and a hard rain fell: A GI's True Story of the War in Vietnam
About the Author
John Ketwig is a Vietnam veteran and the author of the critically acclaimed memoir and a hard rain fell.
Works by John Ketwig
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- John Ketwig is a Vietnam veteran and the author of …and a hard rain fell; A G.I.’s True Story of the Vietnam War, published by Macmillan in 1985. It has gone through 24 printings. The book has been the featured offering of The Book of the Month Club, The Military Book Club, and the History Book Club, and has sold more than a half million copies. Ketwig has completed a second book, tentatively titled Vietnam Revisited, NOT Revised. He is a retired automotive parts and service professional, and has been an automotive factory manager (Toyota, Rolls-Royce / Bentley, Ford, Hyundai, Prevost buses and motor homes). He was an Iraq war commentator for National Public Radio in 2003, and he has appeared on many TV and radio talk shows. He lives in Bedford.
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Reviews
This is one of those Vietnam War memoirs that rises above the rest. Ketwig was basically a kid when he enlisted in 1967, hoping to avoid getting drafted and sent to Vietnam the only way an ordinary kid from upstate New York could. The recruiter promised him he'd be fixing trucks in Germany, but he wound up at a military scrap yard near Pleiku, with 365 days of war to survive.
There are the standard scenes; ambushes, terror, dead bodies, Army brutality, whorehouses and drug-fueled benders. show more Ketwig witnessed a few truly atrocious things, including Green Berets executing a prisoner with a firehose, and truly bizarre, like getting stoned with NVA soldiers on the night Bobby Kennedy was shot. But what makes this book exceptional is the emotional honesty; Ketwig bleeds on the page, working out a decade of suppressed memories, and the cultural context. The boys who went to Vietnam, and they definitely went as boys, were a generation raised on TV, muscle cars, the Beatles and the Space Race. They were people with tremendous dreams, fed into a meat grinder of a war to justify lies. Ketwig has used this book as the foundation of a career speaking out against the military-industrial complex, and he is brave and right to do so.
Since I do read a lot of these, one thing that separates out Ketwig as a volunteer is that he had a second year in the Army, which he spent in Thailand. Thailand in 68 and 69 seems like a fascinating place, and Ketwig explored and appreciated the culture as much as is possible, while also getting his head in some kind of shape to come back to America. Too many of these books are just that one year, And a Hard Rain Fell explains how that year matters in the course of a life.
Music recommendation: The Electric Flag show less
There are the standard scenes; ambushes, terror, dead bodies, Army brutality, whorehouses and drug-fueled benders. show more Ketwig witnessed a few truly atrocious things, including Green Berets executing a prisoner with a firehose, and truly bizarre, like getting stoned with NVA soldiers on the night Bobby Kennedy was shot. But what makes this book exceptional is the emotional honesty; Ketwig bleeds on the page, working out a decade of suppressed memories, and the cultural context. The boys who went to Vietnam, and they definitely went as boys, were a generation raised on TV, muscle cars, the Beatles and the Space Race. They were people with tremendous dreams, fed into a meat grinder of a war to justify lies. Ketwig has used this book as the foundation of a career speaking out against the military-industrial complex, and he is brave and right to do so.
Since I do read a lot of these, one thing that separates out Ketwig as a volunteer is that he had a second year in the Army, which he spent in Thailand. Thailand in 68 and 69 seems like a fascinating place, and Ketwig explored and appreciated the culture as much as is possible, while also getting his head in some kind of shape to come back to America. Too many of these books are just that one year, And a Hard Rain Fell explains how that year matters in the course of a life.
Music recommendation: The Electric Flag show less
An absolutely searing and visceral account of one young mans war in Vietnam and its after effects on his life. At times extremely hard to read, making one ask many questions that have no answers, chiefly among them "Why?". I laughed, I wept, I squirmed, the author has a gift and hits all of ones emotions. If you read only one book about Vietnam...read this one.
Review: …And a hard rain fell by John Ketwig.
A GI’s experience of the war in Vietnam. Every person who served in Vietnam has their own traumatizing story to tell. Many people have put this author down and claim he is a whiner. I was only about ten when the war in Vietnam was going on and I have heard many stories some worst then others so why condemn this one soldier for his two years he gave to his Country. Why not read his accounts, even if some are flawed? He saw it the way it was to show more him. Other authors and Vietnam Vets have documented well the haze of depersonalization that characterized the U.S. Military in the middle 1960s. The trauma of such transformation is hard to understand unless one has “been there, done that“.
Ketwig was in a stage of confusion when he signed up for another year in Thailand. He wanted to go home but fear at that time held him back. He felt another year was a good choice for him. It became therapeutic for him and allowed him to shut his demons away without confronting them at that time. Then the day came when he goes home to suffer the dislocation common to many Vietnam Vets. In time he makes a life, but his demons never rest. At least not until he begins to tap this story out painfully, page by page…..
I was intrigued, interested and curious to read about the two years John Ketwig spent in Southeast Asia. It is a story of one man’s war. It’s a valuable recollection of what war does to human beings. This story is even more critical today, as Iraq and Afghanistan blaze across our national consciousness. This book was well written and should not be downsized.
A statement in the book that stays with me: Is a human being really in control of his/her own destiny? Were we victors, or victims? What is a person’s duty to his Country? To his/her God? To his/her fellow person? Which has priority? It is difficult to agree upon the answers to those questions; it was more difficult in Vietnam. The average age of the American fighting person in The Nam War was nineteen. The average age of the American fighting person in World War II was twenty-six. A lot of persons spent a year in Nam and came home and couldn’t legally drink a beer. We debate teenage drinking, teenage voting, and teenage marriage. Vietnam haunts America. When will we debate teenage war? show less
A GI’s experience of the war in Vietnam. Every person who served in Vietnam has their own traumatizing story to tell. Many people have put this author down and claim he is a whiner. I was only about ten when the war in Vietnam was going on and I have heard many stories some worst then others so why condemn this one soldier for his two years he gave to his Country. Why not read his accounts, even if some are flawed? He saw it the way it was to show more him. Other authors and Vietnam Vets have documented well the haze of depersonalization that characterized the U.S. Military in the middle 1960s. The trauma of such transformation is hard to understand unless one has “been there, done that“.
Ketwig was in a stage of confusion when he signed up for another year in Thailand. He wanted to go home but fear at that time held him back. He felt another year was a good choice for him. It became therapeutic for him and allowed him to shut his demons away without confronting them at that time. Then the day came when he goes home to suffer the dislocation common to many Vietnam Vets. In time he makes a life, but his demons never rest. At least not until he begins to tap this story out painfully, page by page…..
I was intrigued, interested and curious to read about the two years John Ketwig spent in Southeast Asia. It is a story of one man’s war. It’s a valuable recollection of what war does to human beings. This story is even more critical today, as Iraq and Afghanistan blaze across our national consciousness. This book was well written and should not be downsized.
A statement in the book that stays with me: Is a human being really in control of his/her own destiny? Were we victors, or victims? What is a person’s duty to his Country? To his/her God? To his/her fellow person? Which has priority? It is difficult to agree upon the answers to those questions; it was more difficult in Vietnam. The average age of the American fighting person in The Nam War was nineteen. The average age of the American fighting person in World War II was twenty-six. A lot of persons spent a year in Nam and came home and couldn’t legally drink a beer. We debate teenage drinking, teenage voting, and teenage marriage. Vietnam haunts America. When will we debate teenage war? show less
A very powerful book, especially for those of us who faced the draft and Vietnam in the late sixties. Ketwig was sent to Vietnam where he faced unimaginable horrors. He rails against the army, as did most draftees, who became the "expendables" while the "lifers" stayed in their air-conditioned bunkers behind the lines and collected medals for themselves.
He "volunteers" for a second year to guarantee a billet in Thailand rather than return home because he doesn't think he can explain his 370 show more days in The Nam. While there he is recognized as a first-rate welder and is airlifted to somewhere classified -- obviously Laos, where our government assured us we were not -- to do some welds on an artillery battery that was shelling North Vietnam.
The section after he returned home feels a little hurried and uneven, almost as if he couldn't wait to get it out. His data regarding the effects of Vietnam on his fellow soldiers are nothing short of frightening. The Air Force "Ranch Hand" report found that mortality in children of Vietnam vets before 28 days was three times that of the population unexposed to Agent Orange. But of course the report said they would not hesitate to use it again.
Prophetically, while in Thailand he has dinner with a Japanese businessman(remember this is 1967) who says the new battlefield will be the marketplace. "War is too expensive." Obviously, we in America haven't been listening.
A must read show less
He "volunteers" for a second year to guarantee a billet in Thailand rather than return home because he doesn't think he can explain his 370 show more days in The Nam. While there he is recognized as a first-rate welder and is airlifted to somewhere classified -- obviously Laos, where our government assured us we were not -- to do some welds on an artillery battery that was shelling North Vietnam.
The section after he returned home feels a little hurried and uneven, almost as if he couldn't wait to get it out. His data regarding the effects of Vietnam on his fellow soldiers are nothing short of frightening. The Air Force "Ranch Hand" report found that mortality in children of Vietnam vets before 28 days was three times that of the population unexposed to Agent Orange. But of course the report said they would not hesitate to use it again.
Prophetically, while in Thailand he has dinner with a Japanese businessman(remember this is 1967) who says the new battlefield will be the marketplace. "War is too expensive." Obviously, we in America haven't been listening.
A must read show less
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