Library Journal Review

Memoirs like Spiller's are in short supply. His story unfolds with his initiation into the Marines at age 17 in June 1963. He returns home over a year later, unable to connect with his family, and eventually reenlists. For the next six years he is assigned to the Cape Girardeau, Missouri Recruiting Office. His duty: to notify personally the relatives of wounded and dead soldiers, including some of his own enlistees. Spiller's unemotional narrative is effective here, and we are moved each time the predictable panic erupts in the face of a mother or father on the other side of the screen door as the ``death angel'' in uniform approaches their home. Told in the third person, Spiller's story is simple, unsophisticated, and detached. While the technical flaws are distracting (uneven indexing; the arbitrary placement of five photographs; and occasional trivial details), this work begins to flesh out an important aspect of Vietnam War history. Recommended for subject collections and for public and high school libraries.-- Pamela J. Peters, SUNY-SICAS Ctr., Oneonta (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.