Book Signing and Author Talk: Wasted Blood: Facing the Music in Vietnam

New Jersey Vietnam Veterans Memorial Foundation

1 Memorial Lane
Holmdel, NJ 07733

Author Ken Palmer was sent to Vietnam in ’69, the year of Woodstock, and was told by his Seabee superior officer that he would be playing guitar in a battalion band off-hours at a local bar in China Beach. You can imagine that with a band name like Wasted Blood they had a great opportunity to express their frustration with the war. Rock and roll music plays in your mind while you read “Wasted Blood: Facing the Music in Vietnam.” Remember the song, You Gotta Get Outta This Place, by the Animals? The rock music adds a level of war relief and entertainment, but in the end the suffering is the same. In the Epilogue, the author reflects on his experience noting that home from the war, this veteran struggles with PTSD and doesn’t know it for 40 years! Someone should make a movie from this memoir. There needs to be more awareness about how pervasive PTSD is. Be sure to check out the special exhibit “Soundtrack of a Changing Nation: The Music of the Vietnam Era” which is soon to be closing making way for the next special exhibit. Museum admission fee is $7 and includes a tour of the museum, light refreshments, and an intimate discussion with the author about his new book. To RSVP, please email the NJVVMF Educator, Keri A. Giannotti, at kgiannotti@njvvmf.org.