It was in the nineties when I had access to a computer that I started searching for someone who knew my uncle Eldon Tozer. Someone who could fill me in with some details about the night he died and what his role was in the war. I connected with Butch Jarvinen and Gary Holmes and they were able to give me some information but I still wanted to know more.
Forty five years have passed since Uncle Eldon's death. Rolland Kidder has answered so many of my questions in his book "Backtracking in Brown Water". He has helped me learn what everyday life was like for Uncle Eldon and what role he played in the war. There were times in the book that I felt like I was in Vietnam. I know now that without a shadow of doubt that Uncle Eldon was hoping to help give the people of Vietnam a better and safer life.
A quote from the book. "There is a knowledge or experience gap between what is going on at home, and what is happening in combat. The world between the soldier and his family proffers silence."
For me Rolland Kidder has broken that silence. I will read the book a second time. Thank you Rolland for all your efforts in keeping Uncle Eldon's memory alive.
Tuesday, April 1st @ 1pm on NPR station WXXI AM1370 out of Rochester, NY. Listen to the LIVE STREAM here: www.wxxi.org/listen.
Evan is an accomplished author, a noted wine industry expert, and a recent TV anchor. He is also very knowledgable - or at least has an articulate point of view - on most any topic that crosses his desk. He also happens to be family, so this interview is destined to be a lively, open discussion on Rolly's new book "Backtracking in Brown Water" among any other tangents that may arise. Tune in! We will post a podcast link here after the fact if you weren't able to listen live.
Rolland: I just finished your book last night. I would have finished it sooner, if I had not been so busy travelling on business. Retirement for me is less than a year away! If you remember, we were in contact with me when you were writing your book. I was a radioman with Mike Connolly in RivDiv 13. Also a friend, til this day, of Doc Rather. Doc and I just had breakfast last Sunday morning as all of us "boat guys" in the Chicago area do once a month.
It might interest you that about every four years we take a PBR that is sitting in the Military Museum near me out of storage and run it on lake Marie. We had a great time doing it a couple years ago. I had 150 PBR sailors and their families on board during multiple trips when I gave them rides that June day.
I just wanted to say that you did a great job of capturing the story of what we did in Nam, the mix of history of that country, and the back stories of the people that were KIA you came in contact with. Thanks for doing such a great job. I had my sister that was most interested in what I did in Vietnam read the book and she said that, for once, she understood what I did and what I went through. I have made an attempt over the years to start a book and tell the story of what we did from a Monitor sailor's perspective. Never finished it. I am glad you got to tell your story and we appreciate it!
A dear friend and a former Executive Director of the Jackson Center, Rolly Kidder is set to celebrate the release of his latest book, Backtracking in Brown Water.
Rolly is a Navy Vietnam War veteran, serving as a Patrol Boat Officer with River Division 535 in the Mekong Delta in 1969-70. He won the Writer's Digest Best Life Stories Award for his first book A Hometown Went to War, an oral history of 37 WWII veterans. Rolly's second historical non-fiction work, Backtracking in Brown Water, journeys back to the rivers and canals of South Vietnam and recounts life on Patrol Boats in the heart of the Mekong Delta. Books will be available for purchase the evening of the event and The Jackson Center will be a local distributor of the book.
This event is proudly sponsored by the Robert H. Jackson Center and the Chautauqua Region Community Foundation. For more information please contact the Robert H. Jackson Center at 716-483-6646. Find Directions here.
Below is a brief video of Rolly introducing the original mission of the Jackson Center when he was the Executive Director.
Rolly and wife Jane wrapping up a very successful event at the Jackson Center - Thank you all!
It is with great thanks and appreciation that I write you about your book. After receiving it, I had held off reading it until I could focus on it completely.
Thank you. Your words about my brother Jimmy while sad to read, and again reminding me of our loss, are also comforting in that I saw that the Jim you knew was the Jimmy I remember so fondly. He was a very special person to us. For years after his death, my eyes would water whenever the Star Spangled Banner would be sung at an event. It reminded me of his service to our great country that our flag represents and that he served so honorably, yet did not return to be able to enjoy such events. The pain has diminished over time, but is never gone.
Since publishing the book, I have received a few inquiries about the firefight audio which is found on page 130.
Audio QR Code from Page 130
First of all, the fact that you can listen to this by scanning your smart phone over the bar code is quite remarkable in itself. Again, credit goes to our son, Bart, who suggested doing it. Many people in my generation, including myself, don't even have a smart phone... but my wife, Jane, does. When we got our first copy of the book, she downloaded a free bar code reading app called "qrafter". Then she hit the "scan" command on her phone and took a photo of the bar code. After that, she hit the play button and my voice came on followed by the firefight recording. I couldn't believe it! What Bart had said, was true. With today's technology, you can listen to an audio recording while reading a book!
The recording itself came from a tape recorder that I had taken on one of the multi-day patrols on the Vinh Te Canal. (It was one of those small, cassette tape recorders that I had purchased in a Navy PX someplace.) While in Vietnam, I periodically sent tapes home to friends and family instead of writing a letter. On this occasion, I used it to actually record some of the "goings on" on the Vinh Te Canal. The first vignnette includes some background discussion between myself and a boat captain of an airstrike he had recorded a prior night. The second occurrs on another night when I turned the recorder on during a firefight between the enemy and the RAG boats.
Fortunately, when I got back to the YRBM 20 after this patrol, I made some copies of the tape. One of them got to an Admiral who queried Mike Connolly (see page 125) about it. Apparently, the tape found its way around because when I was writing the book, Larry Forbes sent me a copy of it, now on a CD. (I believe that Larry had gotten it from Joe Petro or one of the other patrol officers.) When Bart told me that we could make it available to readers through this bar code technology, I sent him the tape (CD), this time with my voice as a lead-in describing what the reader is listening to.
All of this is to say, that getting this tape into a book was a joint effort. I could never have figured out how to do it on my own. However, now that it is done, I am pleased with the outcome. You can write about the emotion, fear and chaos of a firefight, but when you can listen to it – it takes on a whole new dimension.
Rolly Kidder
The audio file is repeated here:
Also - if you'd like to try the QR code link, scan the code below with any free QR code reader app (i.e, i-nigma, qrafter, scan). The direct link to the US Archives is: http://goo.gl/atxkzG
Just finished your book, and I thought it was terrific. It captured the reality and all of the conflicts of the Vietnam war in a way that I found unique and moving. I'm normally not big on military history, but this was wonderful --I'm going to buy a few more copies to give to friends who went through it.
While reading it I was continually haunted by the fact that at the very period you were there, late '69 and early '70, I was finishing college in Washington and participating nearly every weekend in some sort of antiwar activity -- our house would be a beehive of activity with friends and complete strangers in town for the latest demonstration. We gave virtually no thought to the realities and experiences of the men on the ground over there, which I regret.
We have established a page called “Recollections of Veterans” for Vietnam veterans to post their own remembrances of what they experienced in Vietnam. I expect that many of these comments will be made by those who served in the Mekong Delta area of the country, or they may be observations related to memories which were sparked by reading the book. We welcome veterans to also send photos of themselves along with a description of their experiences. My experiences, as related in the book, are only a part of the story. Readers will be interested in the perspective of others who served.
