Brighton-Pittsford Post

Images from the Otherland: Memoir of a United States Marine Corps Artillery Officer in Vietnam

There are moments in this book that are powerfully moving. Kenneth P. Sympson, author of Images from the Otherland, takes us on a wartime journey with a descriptive account of his tour of duty as a Marine Corps officer during America's longest war - Vietnam.

"Villages in the distance. Rice paddies framed by dikes. Peaceful. Primitive," Sympson recounts. "The helicopter about 75 meters ahead of us begins its descent to the target LZ. Suddenly it's hit by ground fire from the hamlet. (Jesus, what was that!) Trailing smoke, it rolls to the left and free-falls out of sight. Now we are the prey."

Vietnam. Back home, the word itself either brought cheers over each American victory, or was drowned out by marches and protests. But what was it like for a young 23-year old artillery officer fighting on the battlefield?

"At the time, I felt a strange form of pleasure in being at risk in combat," Sympson said during a recent phone interview. "It was like a roller coaster ride with drops and high-speed turns."

"Vietnam was a netherland, not hell exactly, but some other place," Sympson said. "It was almost as if it never really existed."

But it did. In his book, Sympson vividly and sensitively recounts the horrors of war: small pockets of Viet Cong hiding in hedgerows and tunnels, booby traps and punji stakes (deadly pointed metal stakes with barbs at either end that could pass through a man's chest or abdomen), expressionless children, bodies and pieces of flesh and bone spread everywhere - "hidden from sight by high grasses, but not concealed from the sense of smell."

Sympson started writing this book as a form of self-therapy after he was stricken with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a cancer probably caused by exposure to Agent Orange.

"I felt increasing pressure to tell someone about my tour in Vietnam," Sympson said. "It was difficult to do, but felt good in the end - like pulling a thorn out. At the time it hurts, then it's over."

"And also, I did it for the veterans community," he continued. "They listened, encouraged, understood, and did not judge. I no longer feel alone with my thoughts."