Vietnam Stories by Ted Pannell | Books in Review
Ted Pannell volunteered for the draft in 1965 and served in Vietnam with the 18th MP Group. He was stationed in Saigon during the Tet Offensive. His book, Vietnam Stories: Dreams to Nightmares, Vietnam 1967 (Tate Publishing, 176 pp., $12.99, paper), is more of a series of vignettes of the high points of his fifteen months in Vietnam than it is an organized memoir.
But the author did hold this reader’s interest, despite less-than-perfect editing. Pannell was in Saigon at the same time I was, but he has a lot more exciting tales to tell of contact with VC and the like than I do. Perhaps the VC tended to target uniformed MPs more than they did Army stenographers in civilian clothes.
This memoir does not end when Pannell leaves Vietnam. It follows him home and describes the struggles he had fitting back into American society. This small book is a worthy addition to the ever-swelling stack of Vietnam War Army memoirs.
The author’s web site is http://vietnamstories.tateauthor.com
—David Willson
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