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Chiron Publications' new release examines the consequences of war
Barbara Child put her heart and soul into a letter to her partner, Alan Morris, while he was at the cottage they shared in Florida and she was away at school in California. He was a Vietnam War veteran, and she was taking a seminary course on war—in particular, the Vietnam War. She turned in her letter as a term paper for the course, calling it “An Open Letter to a Vietnam Veteran.”
A little more than two years later, the war finally took its toll on Alan. He put a Colt .45 to his head and pulled the trigger. Barbara read part of her letter as the eulogy at his memorial service. That letter led to one thing, then another. Eventually, Barbara began analysis with a Jungian psychologist and shared the letter with him. She began talking more and more about Alan. She began writing more and more about Alan. From those writings came this book.
“Barbara Child’s … memoir … shares the intimate stories of a combat medic and a home front peace activist during and after their wars at home and overseas. We learn how both were indelibly reshaped by the horrors of that war.” – Edward Tick, author of War and the Soul and Warrior’s Return and director of Soldier’s Heart, Inc.
“Barbara Child has given us the moving and desperate reality of her life as a partner of a Vietnam veteran. … [W]e are brought up short against the dehumanizing consequences of war.” – Laura Waterman, author of Losing the Garden: The Story of a Marriage
“I find the writing marvelous.” – Jonathan Shay, author of Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character and Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming
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| | Author Barbara Child began her professional life teaching English at Kent State University, where she barely escaped the National Guard’s gunfire on May 4, 1970. She became an attorney, first practicing poverty law and then teaching as a plain legal language advocate in law schools and among state legislative drafting bureaus. In 1996, she became a Unitarian Universalist minister. Retired now from full-time ministry, she is what she calls a “writing fool,” also happily devoting her time to editing collections of essays and meditations for use in transitional ministry.
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