What to read after Well Done, Those Men?

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.