Wow!! We just received word that Bleeding Spirits: A Combat Soldier’s Memoir of the Vietnam War (1968-1969) was listed by Aaron Parrett as the standout military history book of 2020 in Montana The Magazine of Western History‘s Montana Book Roundup!
We had the honor of serving as editor for this book — a post-humously published memoir written by Robert Jewell. Among Bob’s greatest wishes prior to succumbing to mesothelioma in 2017 was to get his story out to people — “for both himself and the world he left behind — in the hopes that it might be of help to his family, friends, and so many others who struggle with PTSD/PTSS and the aftermath of war.
Robert Jewell’s Bleeding Spirits…offers a riveting and haunting account of what a 416-day tour of Vietnam on the heels of the Tet Offensive can do to an ordinary human being over the course of a lifetime. In the vein of such classics as The Things They Carried (Tim O’Brien) or A Rumor of War (Philip Caputo), Jewell’s unvarnished memories of the war pull the reader along with him as he tries to make sense of what happened to his nineteen-year-old self in the jungles of a foreign country, ten thousand miles from his hometown of Great Falls, Montana. Jewell’s passionate voice throughout underscores the true horror of war, especially of that war, in a way that few books or films have been able to do. — Aaron Parrett, Montana The Magazine of Western History, Montana Book Roundup
About Bleeding Spirits
Synopsis: While working a summer road crew job in Glacier National Park in 1967, Robert Jewell was handed papers drafting him into the Army. Soon he’d find himself in Vietnam, carrying an M-16 at the start of the Tet Offensive. Jewell’s fourteen-month tour exposed him to the horrors and complexities of war and his journey to reconcile these experiences with his civilian life. This memoir is an honest, raw, and moving testament to Jewell’s belief that the events of life “are our teachers.” Jewell would survive the war and become a respected teacher himself, educating generations of youth in Helena, Montana throughout a distinguished career. Written to help himself come to terms with how Vietnam changed him, Bleeding Spirits is a window into the workings of war and its warriors, and an inspirational story of the struggle and beauty involved in the search for a sense of peace.
The book is published by local business Sweetgrass Books and is available online and at various bookstores. We also have some copies in our office; If you knew Bob or know of someone who would benefit by reading this book and would like a copy, please contact us at info@merlinccc.org.