Media Type : Book | Rating : 6.0 out of 10 | Read on : April 15^th, 2004

Released : June, 1999 | New & Used Book Price : $25 & $12.50

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I recently finished reading the book “From Pearl Harbor to Saigon”, a book by Toshio Whelchel that focuses on the Japanese Americans serving in the Vietnam War and their experiences both at home in America and while serving in America. Toshio Whelchel, who served with the Marines, interviews hundreds of Japanese Americans who served in the Vietnam war to give us an idea of how it felt to be an Asian American and serve during the Vietnam War. From the most general details [such as being placed in different elements of a unit because of being an Asian American] to the most minute ones [accounts of people asked to dress up as Vietnamese farmers and opposition fighters to give the soldiers an idea of who they were fighting], this book opens up a chest of secrets that was closed for a long time until Toshio approached the soldiers and interviewed them.

The book details the accounts and views of each person interviewed, from their childhood, to their teens and their experiences during the war. The book also does an excellent job of telling us what each of the soldiers felt when they came back from duty in Vietnam and how the people reacted to them, and how they themselves reacted to the people around them. At a time where hostile attitudes towards anyone who was thought to have fought in Vietnam was at its climax, each of the people interviewed came across ideologies which changed their lives forever. The book, overall, opens up yet another chapter in a War that is still a mystery to us.