On June 26, 2014 Mr. Pena's brother-in-law, Michael Malley, a Vietnam veteran, drafted a letter to him and it reads as follows.
Dear Dickie:
Thanks for "Last Plane Out of Saigon," which I just finished. "Enjoy" isn't exactly the word that comes to my mind, as in "I really enjoyed it," because your book doesn't evoke pleasurable feelings or memories.
But it does evoke deep feelings and memories in me, and for that reason I congratulate you and John Hagan on a powerful and incisive remembrance of a time and place and war that isn't really past.
I bet that the more recent veterans of the Iraq war, many of whom weren't born while the Vietnam war was going on would respond as I did when reading your book.
Dear Dickie:
Thanks for "Last Plane Out of Saigon," which I just finished. "Enjoy" isn't exactly the word that comes to my mind, as in "I really enjoyed it," because your book doesn't evoke pleasurable feelings or memories.
But it does evoke deep feelings and memories in me, and for that reason I congratulate you and John Hagan on a powerful and incisive remembrance of a time and place and war that isn't really past.
I bet that the more recent veterans of the Iraq war, many of whom weren't born while the Vietnam war was going on would respond as I did when reading your book.
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