James M. Wall, editor of The Christian Century magazine

Book Review: Backtracking in Brown Water

In this remarkably informed, and deeply moving, book, Rolland Kidder takes the reader back to the Vietnam War where he served as a combat naval officer. He weaves personal stories of friends who died with his own experiences as the skipper of a naval boat on river patrols. He also writes of his surprising encounters with a rich Vietnamese culture, a way of life sadly little known by those who waged the war from far away Washington, DC.


Kidder traces his own story of how an upstate New York farm boy studied for the Methodist ministry, survived the war and then, after the war, became a lawyer and a state legislator, representing the district in which he had grown up.

At the heart of Backtracking in Brown Water are the stories of three Americans who died in battle, men Kidder knew and admired. He reports on their deaths and then writes of his experience of talking with surviving family members he managed to find..He also makes personal visits to their burial sites. 

After searching for and finding family members, he talked with them about the deaths in Vietnam of the three men they lost. The family members were also eager to share stories of the earlier years of the three men whose lives had been cut short. 

This is Kidder's personal story.  It is also an historical overview of a period in American life when the Vietnam War was part of major changes taking place in American society.  His ministerial training helped Kidder to do his research and provided him with the ability understand better those he met in Vietnam and their surviving families. 

James M. Wall
editor of The Christian Century magazine, Chicago, Illinois, 1972-1999.