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Kelli S. Hewett
Homewood resident and author Richard "Dick" Berliner
Homewood resident Richard “Dick” Berliner with his book, “A Different Journey: Vietnam 1965-1973.”
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Kelli S. Hewett
Homewood resident and author Richard "Dick" Berliner
Richard “Dick” Berliner’s book, “A Different Journey: Vietnam 1965-1973,” contains letters he wrote to his parents as a humanitarian aid worker in Vietnam during the war.
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Kelli S. Hewett
Homewood resident and author Richard "Dick" Berliner's book, “A Different Journey: Vietnam 1965-1973”
Richard “Dick” Berliner’s book, “A Different Journey: Vietnam 1965-1973,” contains letters he wrote to his parents as a humanitarian aid worker in Vietnam during the war.
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Photo courtesy of Richard Berliner.
John Balaban and Richard Berliner in Saigon in 1968
John Balaban and Richard Berliner with hospital personnel prepare to take children to the U.S. for medical care in Saigon in 1968.
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Photo courtesy of Richard Berliner.
Richard Berliner, left, and Thích Trí Quång
Richard Berliner with Thích Trí Quång, organizer of 1963 Buddhist protest against the government of Ngô Đình Diệm in Saigon, Vietnam in 1967.
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Photo courtesy of Richard Berliner.
Richard Berliner in Cam Ranh Bay
Berliner on a ferry in Cam Ranh Bay returning from a refugee camp in 1967.
The trove of carefully typed letters sat in a basement storage box for more than half a lifetime — never quite forgotten but never rising to the forefront, either. Now, dozens of letters that Richard “Dick” Berliner of Homewood wrote to his parents from Vietnam as a humanitarian aid worker and eventual opponent of the Vietnam War are chronicled in his first book, “A Different Journey: Vietnam 1965-1973.”
The former newspaper reporter, humanitarian aid volunteer, press secretary to the late U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy, health organizer and now (at age 81) published author spent more than five years on the project.
“I resisted writing a book for what turned out to be about 50 years,” said Berliner, a longtime resident of the historic Hollywood neighborhood. “I was not particularly aware that my experience was very different than others. I didn’t think there was a need for a book, but I also began to get feedback that my experience was different. The letters brought back a different side of the war to me.”
In one dispatch to his parents dated April 6, 1968, Berliner wrote, “The death of Martin Luther King and the ensuing violence has come as a shock to us here, though not a surprise. Violence has become so much a part of our life in Vietnam that we’ve come to expect it, not only here but home as well. Nonviolence is only an illusion, a dream of a King or a Gandhi. For us also a reminder that even when we leave Vietnam we will not be withdrawing from the stage of human suffering, needless and indiscriminate. Only the characters will change.”
While in Vietnam, Berliner worked with volunteer and health organizations such as International Voluntary Services and the Committee of Responsibility to Save War-Burned and War-Injured Vietnamese Children. His work took him from bombed-out villages to refugee camps to overcrowded hospitals.
“I went to Vietnam with a lot of skepticism about the war, and it was all reinforced while I was there,” Berliner said. “Then I came back and worked for two more years with a news service. And so the total foolhardiness of fighting this war was more and more evident.”
Later, Berliner reflected on the changing future of the young people he worked with.
“The war was continuing to go on and intensify, and I was working with Vietnamese youth,” Berliner said. “They could not plan their future, and they were being subject to the draft.”
It’s a perspective not a lot of Americans witnessed or heard about. And the passage of time weighed heavily on his work. Berliner described the emotional toll the war took on him both then and as a writer.
“Vietnam was a depressing experience from so many respects — not only the casualties, the human loss, the cost — but also the way our government conducted the war,” Berliner said. “Hopefully the book strikes a balance. It was not a lark and it was not always ducking bullets or being in harm’s way.”
Berliner said the challenge of his civilian memoir was to be historically accurate and informative — to write for colleagues who had the same experience but also for those who knew nothing about Vietnam — except perhaps that America lost the war and 50,000 soldiers. So he supplemented his letters and four subsequent trips to Vietnam after the war with research and reading historical accounts.
“It’s been a great experience because I got to get in touch with people I hadn’t talked to for years or maybe never talked to,” he said. “I’m kind of reliving this whole thing. My experience is, the book is striking a chord with people and stimulating memories about their experience. They love to talk about it.”
For Berliner, telling his story was a hard-won journey — one that preserved not just history but the heart of his own experience. Even after countless edits and years of work, Berliner said he has found a sense of satisfaction.
“When I read through it — and I had to edit it so often, so long — every time I read through it, I still liked the book,” Berliner said. “So that was probably a good sign.”
Richard Berliner’s new book, “A Different Journey: Vietnam 1965-1973,” is available at richardaberliner.com, at local booksellers and through online retailers, including Amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com.
