Seeking Quan Am

A Dual Memoir of War and Vietnam

By: Susan R. Dixon, Mark M. Smith

Narrated by: Susan R. Dixon, Kevin Basl

What happens when a two-tour Vietnam veteran tries to talk to an anti-war activist decades after the war has ended? Will buried memories, simmering resentment, and divisive stereotypes sabotage their effort? Has too much time passed?

Seeking Quan Am tells their story.

Mark M. Smith chose to enlist in the Army after high school and serve in Vietnam as an infantryman with the First Air Cavalry. He wanted to experience war directly, to feel what it was like to come under fire. His high school classmate Susan R. Dixon experienced war indirectly, seeing its physical effects during her travels in Europe and the Middle East and its emotional effects through generations of her own family.

Mark wanted to tell the story he wrote in the years immediately after his return, to share the burden he had been carrying. Susan wanted to better understand the trauma witnesses experience. Together they journeyed into memory and toward modern Vietnam, with no guarantees where that journey would take them.

This book is highly recommended for veterans and civilians who suffer from the physical, emotional, and spiritual wounds of war.

©2019 Ariadne's Thread, Inc. (P)2022 Ariadne's Thread, Inc.

Trustworthy reality

I lived through the Vietnam era, but I never knew what was going on there. I feel like I do now. There is a trustworthy reality in the pages of this book that I appreciate.