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...and a Hard Rain Fell: A GI's True Story of the War in Vietnam

john ketwig

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I didn't set out to write a book. It was 1982, fourteen years after I had last set foot in Vietnam, and thirteen years after I returned to The World. I had a family and a career. I’d never written more than an occasional letter to the editor in my life. My twisted insides had spawned ulcers. The nightmares were more frequent. I needed to get Vietnam out into the open, but I couldn’t talk about it. Not after all those years. Thus begins John Ketwig’s powerful memoir of the Vietnam War. Now, over 15 years after its initial publication, Sourcebooks is proud to bring …and a hard rain fell back into print in a newly updated edition, with a new introduction by the author and eight pages of never-before-published photographs. From the country roads of upstate New York to the jungles of Vietnam, and finally to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., …and a hard rain fell is a gripping and visceral account of one young man’s struggle to make sense of his place in a world gone mad.

400 pages, Paperback

First published June 1,1985

This edition

Format
400 pages, Paperback
Published
September 1, 2002 by Sourcebooks Inc
ISBN
9781570719875
ASIN
157071987X
Language
English

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john ketwig

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Rating(4.1 / 5.0, 86 votes)
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86 reviews All reviews
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natsusa
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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The author went to Vietnam in 1967. His story evokes combat, and the cultural shock of Southeast Asia. He saw the death of his friends, treatment of Vietnam woman by their people and napalming of civilians. A compelling look at what our youth endured in the Vietnam war.
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BattleHammer
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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Another war time story and a true story but tells out the truth about a Vietnam veteran.
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Lock-Senpai
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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Wow! If you like this genre- true life war stories that make you feel like you are there, then this is a great one. This book captrues how crazy the war was. Told from the point of view of a guy who was supporting the front line- a mechanic who was ambushed at times, on convoy details and mostly just fixing trucks, but at a place that would get shelled periodically. Not a "I was in the jungle for a year fighting every day" but just a typical guy- and how that screwed him up royally. The confusion, pot smoke, fear mixture pours off the pages. I cried when he came home.
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cubecrow
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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This is one of the best books dealing with the Vietnam experience I have read. Perhaps part of its appeal for me came from the parallels between Ketwigs experience and my own. Both of us served in non combat units but were drawn into combat from the periphery by the nature of our work. Though precise experiences were different our responses were oh so very similar. More importantly his observations and thought were so ver familiar to me; now after so many years my own have faded into a kind of heavy cloud that carries a felt sense but from which much detail has fled. This book brought my own responses back in stark relief.

The other similarity was his tour in Thailand. I did almost the same thing. After Vietnam I went to serve as a free lance soldier with FANK forces in Cambodia.There the combat I saw was of very high intensity and at close range. After I was slightly wounded, and the bubble of a sense of teenage invulnerability had been shattered by that event I went to Thailand to recover and spent several months traveling around that country, which then before the ruin of commercial tourism, it was the most beautiful place in the world and the Thai people before the greed of western consumerism got them by the throat were a very special people. Again his observations and thoughts as well as many of his experiences paralleled my own. This is a frank and truthful account by a young man who was typical of so many. we are all old now and the rawness of those years has dimmed, some may wonder and ask what it was like, the answers can be glimpsed here.
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IcyMirage
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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"One loves the sick child but curses the disease."

I agree with Mr. Ketwig's criticism of our government. I am impressed by his frank delivery of his time at war, including portions that must have generated awkward conversations with his wife and children.

At the time of this review, the US spent more on its military budget than the next nine countries combined. As Mr. Ketwig notes, what has this use of taxpayer money achieved? To quote Bernie Sanders, who tried to make military audits hold weight with accountability,

"The Pentagon and the military industrial complex have been plagued by a massive amount of waste, fraud, and financial mismanagement for decades."

Mr. Ketwig's lessons from his experience in Vietnam are as prescient as when he first wrote them.
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sekaiwaKIREI
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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Now one of favorites books. Very highly reocmmended

John Ketwig’s memoir was a fascinating, absorbing story. I have read a lot of war stories, and this is one of the most memorable. He describes his experiences in Viet Nam with complete honesty. He talks about the fear, the terror, the despair, the hopelessness, and terrible destruction and what it did to him. The details about the war were enough to make this a worthwhile read, but the real story was about what it did to him. He did not know how to return to the United States after his year, so he transferred to a post in Thailand, where he decompressed and somehow put away his war experience. Not so easy, though. Ketwig struggled for a long time to return to society. He appears to have been able to do so, though he says Viet Nam has pursued him for the rest of his life. In the afterward of the 2007 edition, he talks about the evils of the military industrial complex, saying that our country is indeed in the business of war for profit. He says that as we send forces to the middle east, we have not learned the lessons from what happened now fifty years ago.

This was a fascinating and truly engaging read. I will carry Ketwig’s story of survival in the war and afterward for a long time.

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mr_bug_kun
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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The author's first hand accounts are brilliantly written and will keep you reading when you wish you could stop. I do not recommend this book if you wish to remain isolated from what we learned about ourselves in the 60's and 70's. If you know a Vietnam Vet, or have the hubris to express an opinion on the war, or the period in US history, without having been there -- read it.

More respect everyday for those who obeyed and served in a hell that made no sense.
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