All war is brutal. Yet one of the worst conflicts of them all is too often overshadowed by our nostalgia for the peace and love ethos of the late 1960’s. Vietnam, especially for non-Americans, was no more than a fuzzy image on a black and white TV set. But this war saw the barbarism and amorality typically associated with the wars of antiquity, yet took place little more than a generation ago.

The raw savagery that occurred in Vietnam is acutely brought into focus in Terry P. Rizzuti’s first novel, The Second Tour. Based on his own experiences as a Marine, the novel describes the suffering, fear and loss of American soldiers during the conflict. But it equally shows the sadistic violence that these same soldiers exerted on others, both on the enemy and sometimes on their own side.

Described in short vignettes, these scenes of violence are told without judgement. There is no morality in Vietnam because no sanction against wrongdoing could be worse than being in Vietnam itself. Instead, these young soldiers become young Nietzschean Ubermensch, creating their own belief systems within a nihilistic vacuum. As Rootie (the narrator) repeats in the book: "God is boys." It is not surprising, then, that Rootie struggles with the God of his Italian-American Catholic upbringing. Indeed, some of the single-paragraph chapters assume a psalm-like quality, as though Rootie is composing his own articles of faith.

While the comfort of home remains the "real" world, the hot and humid hills and jungle of Vietnam provide an environment without any apparent logic. This is presented in the novel by utilizing a modernist style that forgoes a chronological narrative in favour of a structure that skips between time and place, as the narrator’s memories demand.

Rootie (and perhaps Rizzuti himself), 27 years after his tour, like many of his comrades, never really manages to overcome the events he lived and witnessed in Vietnam. Thus, two narratives intertwine: one, the first tour as Rootie experiences fighting in Vietnam; and the second tour, the one back home, as Rizzuti exorcises this experience in a shocking but moving way.

The SECOND TOUR
Readers Respond
www.thesecondtour.com

A Stunning Debut Novel

"If you want to "feel" the effects of war the way grunts do, please read this book. Learn how they become trusted friends, how they live, die and still survive today with their memories.

The author, an English literature graduate who served in Vietnam in as a combat Marine in 1966 and ‘67 with the 26th Marine Regiment, was awarded the Purple Heart for shrapnel wounds.

This book is a treatise on the development of dissociation, the hallmark of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, as evidenced by "The Thousand Yard Stare" on the book’s cover, as well as the following quotes:

"Right now I’m only free in my day dreams" p. 39

"Registering one life-lasting color photo of his mutilated face" p. 98

"The experience is still as real as the adrenaline it triggers" p. 125

"It seemed as though [my hands] belonged to someone else" p. 149

This book is an essential primer for anyone working therapeutically with veterans and PTSD. This remarkable book raises serious questions, while providing critical catharsis and even more importantly, cogent answers that have given me a new understanding of the plight my patients face."

-Darryl Zitzow, Ph.D., clinical psychologist

A Literary Look at PTSD in the Making

"The Second Tour is a Vietnam War novel, but many readers seem to avoid picking it up because they fail to see that it is a novel before it is about war. It is in fact set mostly in a 13 month tour served by its protagonist in ‘Nam.’ Those who see only this setting miss the joy of reading a superb novel of the human spirit tried and sometimes broken in genuine fire.

In Vietnam, America and Americans were forced to try and overcome insurmountable hardships. We sent our children into a situation where America’s problems of racism and social stratification had to be set aside and 19-year-olds were forced to embrace each other as brothers or simply die. And they still died. This novel graphically represents how they died, how some lived, and how some of those who lived must still fight that ugly war in their daily lives. That is the story here.
Far from just being a story, this is a really terrific novel for those who are readers of literature. It is no easy read either in content or form. Its graphic depiction of the truth of war is a discomfiting experience for many, perhaps especially for women, yet it is truly worth the emotional expenditure of its reading. A generation of wives, mothers, sisters and daughters who have been forced to deal with the men who survived that war, or truly any family member who must come to understand combat veterans, will come to new and explanatory insights in reading The Second Tour.

For readers of novels it offers other recompense. It is not stream-of-consciousness, not modernist, not associational, yet it is all of those and more. Much like coming to Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow with no understanding of the possibilities of form, a reader might become baffled by the style of its telling. However, anyone who has the patience to overcome their expectations and continue reading will be rewarded many times over by the way that this author uses form as a powerful tool in the telling of his story. This is clearly a novel of the human condition first, and a Vietnam War novel second."

-Jin Brown, Ph.D.

Spinetinglers Rating Five Stars
"What was it like in Vietnam—How in the hell do you describe it?"

"This is clearly a question about which the author of The Second Tour, Terry P. Rizzuti, has thought long and hard. The results of his deliberation are found within the pages of his stunning debut novel, a work in which readers discover an intriguing and compellingly fresh answer.

The Second Tour tells the story of Vietnam in fragmented, non-sequential visions from the perspective of Rootie, a low-level marine. He describes how he and his friends survived, how they lived, and how they died—although not necessarily in that order. By also giving readers brief glimpses of his life after Vietnam, he allows them to see the tremendous impact that serving in Vietnam for just thirteen months has had on his life.

Despite his descriptions of the hardships of war, Rizzuti does not make any moral judgements about the men who fought in Vietnam. Rizzuti tells his story in a frank and subtle manner that prevents him from using the clichés to which so many authors of his genre resort. His matter-of-fact, conversational style often makes readers feel as if they have wandered into a bar where a Vietnam veteran is telling his story by recalling bits and pieces of what he remembers—maybe showing them the odd letter that he wrote home while Bob Dylan songs play on the jukebox.

Rizzuti’s style of writing completely captivates and intrigues his audience. As his story jumps decades, often within the span of several paragraphs, readers are frequently uncertain from which location or year the narrator is speaking as they read the initial line of any section. Although this may sound confusing or complicated to some potential readers, at no time do readers become overwhelmed, or does the novel become overly convoluted. Because Rootie’s flawlessly flowing narrative links all the events together, it is of no consequence that the events are narrated out of sequence; in fact, such a style of narration only adds to the enjoyment of this refreshing take on a subject that has been often explored.

In short, The Second Tour’s honesty, sincerity, and authenticity makes it clear from the beginning that this novel could only have been written by someone who was actually in Vietnam. Although a work of fiction, The Second Tour is based on events few have experienced, providing a fascinating insight into war and the boys who eventually become men when they are sent to fight it.

The Second Tour is not only an electrifying read for fans of the genre, but also a fitting epitaph for those who lost their lives far away from home."

-Reviewed by, Nolene-Patricia Dougan
www.spinetinglers.net

Genre: Biographical Fiction

"As we remember the history of our lives there is a tendency to forget the individual as we consider the scope of the events, even those through which we have lived. The fictionalized story of Terry Rizzuti’s service in Vietnam vividly brings to mind the idea that history is written and perceptions of it shaped by the observers of history rather than the participants. March along with Terry Rizzuti as he and his brethren in arms go through and experience the horrors of war as only the foot soldier can. It is he who truly knows war.

The episodes described in this book are honest and told with little judgment. The reader can feel the heat of the jungle and the dread of encountering a foe that is greatly unlike the enemy faced by the fathers of the men who fought in Vietnam. Only by reading this book can a person hope to share in the experiences of a Marine Rifleman and those who fought with him through patrols, booby traps, conflicts with superiors, and the loves and hates of men who are thrown together from all parts of the country and expected to accomplish a given mission.

This book is written in a style that some might find to be disconcerting. This should not discourage a reader. This is one of those rare books that only by completing it and contemplating it can the reader internalize it and make it one’s own. If someone lived in or grew up through these turbulent times then the style might be strikingly reminiscent of Procul Harum’s undeclared anthem of the 60’s, ‘A whiter shade of Pale.’ The parts of this story which encompass a year in the war and hints of the struggles to ‘fit in’ after the return home bombard the reader with fragments of a quilt. And as a person minutely examines a quilt, then backs up and looks at the whole, the feel and aim of this book can only be appreciated with the perspective of reflection after closing the back cover after reading the words of that most American of all bugle calls, ‘Taps’ which is the reassuring lullaby that means a soldier is at peace.

This book comes highly recommended from an author who has a degree in English Literature and has won several awards for writing and analysis of literature. It is well worth the time to read and savor and remember."

-John Helman, Allbooks Reviews.
www.allbookreviews.com