A Patriot After All: The Story of a Chicano Vietnam Vet

by Juan Ramirez

Book Overview

Juan Ramirez always believed he would die in Vietnam. As a teenager growing up in the San Francisco area in the early 1960s, "Nam was there, just over the horizon, like the distant thump of artillery." His father and uncles had served in World War II, another uncle in Korea. Numerous cousins had enlisted. At nineteen, Ramirez decided to embrace the war. In 1968, the year of the Tet offensive, Ramirez joined the U.S. marines.

Two bloody tours...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0826319599
• ISBN13: 9780826319593
• Release Date: February 1999
• Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
• Length: 190 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.4" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Wow! A real hero!

This is a book that needs to become a movie but a film just couldn't capture the raw truth of this man's experience. Written in retrospect A Patriot After All covers a Chicano's life from emerging from an agriculutral family, to low level working class to a family striving to become typical Americans, yet held back by the realities of rascism, discrimination and their working class background. The writer embraces his own frailty to reveal the humanity of his family trapped by Society and repressed by their own shortcomings. Through it all he continues to try and be an American and never blames America for the abuse and self abuse he faces. Wow, what a story!

A FIVE STAR KNOCK OUT...

RAMIREZ HAS BRAVELY WRITTEN AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY PLOTTING HIS LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE FROM CHILDHOOD TO SOBRIETY. AS A TRUE AMERICAN VIETNAM WAR HERO, HIS VERY PERSONAL TALE IS INTERTWINED WITH MOMENTS OF GREAT JOY, CONFUSION ABOUT HIS HERITAGE AND SELF-IDENTITY, DESTRUCTIVE BEHAVIOR AND HIS ULTIMATE SURVIVAL. I FOUND MYSELF ENTHRALLED BY RAMIREZ' WRITING STYLE. ON MORE THAN ONE OCCASSION, RAMIREZ' PROSE AND TIMING, IN THE MIDST OF THE MOST UNUSUAL CIRCUMSTANCES, RIVALS THE BEST. EVEN THOUGH I LAUGHED AND CRIED WITH RAMIREZ, HE NEVER LOOSES SIGHT OF WHO HE IS AND RECOGNIZES MILLIONS OF WAR VETERANS FOR TAKING A SIMILAR JOURNEY. MY HAT IS OFF TO MR. RAMIREZ FOR WRITING A POIGNANT AND COMPELLING BOOK THAT FREELY EXPOSES HIS INNER FELLINGS. HIS WILLINGNESS TO SHARE HIS LIFE, FOR GOOD AND BAD, IS TRULY STIMULATING AND INSIGHTFUL.