Ben Figueroa reviews Memories in Green

Memories in Green:

A mind’s fifty-year journey from drafted to PTSD, Reflections from Viet Nam

by Beto Conde

Review by Ben Figueroa

The Vietnam War was unique in that the birth of PTSD brought back by countless veterans has haunted veterans of foreign wars before and since Vietnam, but we did not know it to be a lifelong demon. In addition, Agent Orange devastated those veterans who survived the Vietnam War and came back only to be turned away and questioned by the Veteran’s Administration that the dangerous toxin used to kill the jungle brush did not affect our veterans who were also sprayed with it.  

Ben Figueroa

Beto Conde from San Benito, Texas, has given us a very real glimpse of what it was for a soldier fighting in the jungles of Vietnam. His book is exemplary of the many veterans who have suffered the demons of PTSD and Agent Orange. It is a vivid and truthful reminder that freedom isn’t free, our veterans who died in the war and came back to suffer a lifetime fought for our freedom here in America. Beto’s book is for all to read who want to experience the Vietnam War.  

America’s war in Vietnam was mainly developed by Defense Secretary Robert McNamara. It was in the early 60s, that his office had become the home base for increasing interest in the Cold War. McNamara was aggressive in choosing Vietnam to commit US forces in a conflict that might not have been there.

Vietnam remains an American tragedy and sorrow for the people it placed in harm’s way. During the return of all those that committed to defending America the attitude by Americans who never set foot in Vietnam was one of hate calling them baby-killers and murderers. All the while no one knew the aftermath of PTSD and the suffering that many experienced in that war and after they came home with a demon inside their soul.  Americans did not give our returning veterans the support that they desperately needed.

Beto Conde writes about an emotional experience in the face of death that he came close to, too many times during his thirteen months in Nam. He also provides many poems expressing his time during and after his one tour in and around his base camp.  His example in the color green exemplifies his fear of death and various thoughts of endless possibilities like losing his legs, an arm, or just being blown to bits. He admits he did not want to be there, but the reality of war is that the other side may not want to be there either, someone just like him walking the jungle floor in combat.  Beto shows very real emotion and connects the realism of war well.

His Spanish poem Niños reflects on his young life pretending to be a soldier playing with a young friend and talks about how the war consumed his entire being. His Spanish verse is a true reflection of a young Mexican American thinking about youth and how the war changed him. His take on Mrs. Lake’s Third Grade Class where he reminisces about his three friends in a third-grade class whose names are now on that shiny wall of black, the Vietnam Monument in Washington DC, is a masterpiece and a story that has its roots with many veterans of Vietnam. It also claims that we must not ever forget those who died and never came back to enjoy the freedom they fought for.

The Day of the Dead is his story of three soldiers killed and how a soldier was wounded and how he eventually bled out and died. A soldier named Alvarado and Beto were sent in to get the body and Alvarado was wounded badly behind his legs from a grenade.  Beto describes Alvarado screaming for his mother that day. A very intense and revealing story of being wounded in combat and feeling the agony of fear and closeness to death.

Beto describes the horror of PTSD as told to him by a fellow veteran who experienced the burning of El Pollo Caliente fried chicken shack on a street where he lived. The incident had to do with a malfunction of a gas line at the chicken shack where in time it exploded. The veteran was in his home fast asleep, but the explosion brought back a memory that he felt vivid back in a firefight. In time, he realized he was back home in his bedroom and was safe, but for the moment the reality of war was there once again.  PTSD for many is some kind of mirage, but for a veteran returning from Vietnam having experienced near death struggles, it is very real.

Beto reflects on the effect of Agent Orange and the Demons that still haunt him as well as connecting with a friend he met in Vietnam from New York after many years that made him feel happy to once again talk about the past. Beto’s book is a valuable history of the experience of a young Mexican American thrown into a war that was controversial, to begin with, and was hated by Americans throughout its time. Still, he reflects on the trauma he brought back with him to an America that really does not understand the plight of our veterans in war.  

Beto’s book is revealing of inner feelings that never go away and the memory of a brief time in the war that haunts him as well as many veterans that come back not the same as when they left. A tribute to the understanding of what our military faced in the jungles of Vietnam. His reliance on firsthand accounts of his experience in Vietnam is revealing and gives his book a super realism and authority about the Vietnam War experience.  Beto clearly advances our knowledge about veterans in general as well as Mexican Americans who have stood the test of fear and commitment fighting for freedom in America, a freedom that many seem to have lost to PTSD and Agent Orange.

Memories in Green

Conde’s stories provide a glimpse into his and others’ experiences in Vietnam, which he hopes many of his comrades in arms will relate to. After being involved in combat and surviving and witnessing others who did not, Conde has come to realize the futility of war.