BRUCE K. BERGER
FRAGMENTS
Bruce Berger, the author, finally came home 50 years after the Vietnam war when his memories crystallized into the 34 poems in this chapbook. He served in Vietnam in 1970 with the Casualty Branch of the 101st Airborne Division. As “next-of-kin” editor, he wrote hundreds of sympathy letters to grieving families back home, and sometimes helped Graves Registration gather fallen brothers on battle grounds in Vietnam. He was immersed in the words, images, weight, and limitless reach of death.
Through this lens, his poems evoke an overwhelming sense of loss on many fronts: the brave soldiers who gave their lives; a village of South Vietnamese widows; the thousands of bui doi, innocent but reviled half-breed (Amerasian) children; the empty afterness of battle grounds and burials; the long, deadly reach of Agent Orange and PTSD into veterans’ lives still today; and the thunderous silence of missing parades back home. Writing these poems brought him home.
The Military Writers Society of America awarded Fragments a Gold Medal in 2021 for the Best Book of War Poetry. Book Authority ranked Fragments #6 in the 100 Best Vietnam War Books in 2023.
PRAISE FOR FRAGMENTS
“Berger’s Fragments is an elegiac reflection of his experience in Viet Nam. These poems, rendered as fragments of memory, pierce like shrapnel, and evoke in haunting detail the senseless losses of this tragic war. Raw, compassionate, and deeply personal, this book is a must-read for those who remember and those too young to know.”
- Gregg
“Fragments is about Berger’s time in Vietnam, and this book will take readers “there”—both to the literal jungles and the psychological jungles in the depths of the minds of those who walked the ground in country. Berger’s words will resonate with anybody who has served—whenever and wherever—particularly in Afghanistan, with so many parallels to Vietnam.”
- Frank Biggio
“I am almost done with the most moving book I have ever read about Vietnam, done in poetry form. Fragments: The Long Coming Home from Vietnam - Bruce Berger father of .@SciGuySpace
is a must-read for anyone that wants to see the emotions and scope of this conflict captured.”
“Berger’s verses truly weave amazing profiles in courage and fear, a medley of hope and senselessness, and the discordance between gentleness and brutality. The vocabulary stings and lifts…. Reading Bruce’s tome reminds us that remembering hurts. It also proves that reflections can heal.”
- Sheila Fuchs
“An incisively moving—often heartbreaking—record of the Vietnam war….You need to read it. Insistent, unforgettable, its poems will frag your heart.”
- Arnold Johnson
“Regardless of who you are, this book will move you….A mosaic of war’s stark realities, then and now, stays with you long after the words sink in. You may put the book down, but you cannot escape its message.”
- Rick St. John