After returning from Vietnam, I kept my illness hidden for years
with long hours of work, study, and sport: anything that produced total
exhaustion and allowed me to fall into a bed and sleep … But I was
wearing out … I survived on two, sometimes four hours' sleep a night,
became hyper-vigilant, wary of crowded places, and my general physical
health deteriorated … Then one night I collapsed. I knew I was dying.
In this intensely personal account, Barry Heard draws on his own
experiences as a young conscript, along with those of his comrades to
look back at life before, during, and after the Vietnam War. The result
is a sympathetic vision of a group of young men who were sent off to war
completely unprepared for the emotional and psychological impact it
would have on them. It is also a vivid and searingly honest portrayal of
the author’s post-war, slow-motion breakdown, and how he dealt with it.
Well Done, Those Men attempts to make sense of what Vietnam
did to the soldiers who fought there. It deals with the comic absurdity
of their military training and the horror of the war they fought, and is
unforgettably moving in recounting what happened to Barry and his
comrades when they returned home to Australia.
As we now know, most Vietnam vets had to deal with a community that
shunned them, and with their own depression, trauma, and guilt. Barry
Heard’s sensitive account of his long journey home from Vietnam is a
tribute to his mates, and an inspiring story of a life reclaimed.