Needham Author Tom Keating—Yesterday’s Soldier: A Passage from Prayer to the Vietnam War

Mon., May 17th @  7:00 PM

The Vietnam War will be long remembered in American history. The controversial conflict lasted eleven years, and we
have images of that war in television and film that sum up the battles: helicopters swooping down, large explosions,
burning huts, soldiers shooting into jungle growth.
But there was another war, a war in the support bases that fed that combat. Huge bases filled with everything needed for combat,
including hospitals and coffins. Men and women processing and shipping all manner of goods while under rocket and mortar shelling.

Tom Keating is a veteran of that war and has written this unique memoir titled, “Yesterday’s Soldier: A Passage from Prayer to the Vietnam War.” The book tells the story of his struggle with the Army, his family, and the Church during this time when, as a highly trained and skilled infantry soldier and officer candidate, he suddenly realizes he could not kill another person and declares his Conscientious Objection. The Army wanted him in jail, his family was against his decision, and his Catholic Church tried to convince him that killing communists was just. His Vietnam War is different from what we think of the Vietnam War, but it was still a war... 

Sponsored by the Needham Free Public Library.