Dear James:

I’ve been working on gathering information on the Vietnam conflict. I’ve been using your bibliography from Inventing Vietnam. It has been very helpful.

I’ve been working to place America’s Indochina experience in a twentieth century context. I find it interesting that each new Vietnam source I find — be it a documentary film, book, or article — seems to show Vietnam as “just another conflict” in the World War that erupted in 1914. It’s as if the historical tendrils of the Great War octopus still has its grip on us–to be all poetic about it.

This is not a new idea, nor is it mine, I’m sure. I recall asking H. Bruce Franklin what he thought of the Iraq War. He shrugged his eyebrows in bewilderment. Charles, he said, Iraq is just the newest conflict in the same Great War. Actually, that’s a paraphrase, but I find the idea intriguing.

I find it interesting that mismanaged global treaties may have thrown the world into a near century of continued war. I mean, you are my superior in the history field, by far, I’m just a poet, but can you tell me of a period since World War I when war was waging somewhere on Earth? I haven’t heard of one, and I’ve been trying.

That’s not relevant to the comp exam, though. That’s my larger project. I’m sorry. It’s so rare I get the chance to correspond with a true historian, so I’m rambling.

My point is, I would like to use this opportunity to place this period — the United States in Vietnam — in the context of a complete historical narrative that begins with World War I and culminates with September 11, 2001.

Is that too ambitious, or not ambitious enough? Again, I’m a literary guy.

I thank you, very much, for your guidance on this.

Yours,

Charles Bivona