This is the first time I've read anything like Terry Rizzuti's "The Second Tour". The way in which Terry tells his story - in fragmented segments - left me hanging, curious and anxious to read what happens next. However, in this format, the next tale may be about something entirely unrelated - maybe even at an earlier or a later date - I found myself in a time machine - not sure where I will be next, but it all seems to come together. Told through the eyes of "Rootie", his nickname because fellow soldiers had a difficult time pronouncing his last name, The Second Tour is very descriptive and makes you feel like you are there with him and his company. It also seemed that as time went on in the story, a death was reported as a matter of fact. There were no more tears or emotions - they were used up much earlier. It is also easy to see how PTSD can result after experiencing such horror and chaos. I enjoyed the story and recommend The Second Tour to anyone who wants to know what these young soldiers had to endure to survive early in the Vietnam War and return home. However, the mental damage had already been done and unlike putting a book down and forgetting about it, this story will continue to play out over and over again in the heads of those men that had experienced it.

John Podlaski, author
Cherries - A Vietnam War Novel ( )

Opened The Second Tour and stepped knee deep in blood and hamburger meat, thigh high to Hail Mary and O My God... shivering in a rain I'd like to think the V.C. patrolled... too panicked to cry... too scared to keep my eye off Hill 602 waiting on betel juice smells and booby traps with every sense awakened, including my 7th sense--that's the sense beyond the prophecy I, myself, am unable to define--getting a good glimpse of how they lived and died... all by borrowing Rootie's lenses.

The Second Tour took me to a place, on the surface I partially expected, but never thought would pull me between each word and hold me there until everything I thought and believed was replaced by a reality more than 59,000 men lived and died. You see, to describe death is one thing, but to portray emotion with the tip of an extroverted paintbrush is entirely another.

The details in this story... the way it is written... woven between the letters home, the remarkable poetry and cantons, and the unnerving foot patrols... how the residue of hardened thoughts cuddled and shielded pain dressing wounds with unexpected humor... and the innocence of men brought to their knees asking questions that No scripture, but only God Himself could answer... all this and more painted a story so real that each fragment of detail made me want to close the book and let my eyes dry. But like Rootie, I couldn't.

This is a succinct but philosophical read that taught me among a few other things... I must be very careful about which books I freely anoint page-turners. There is so much to talk about here, yet I find myself now rendered speechless. I only spent one day in Vietnam borrowing Rootie's lenses, and two days later I'm still decompressing. It's unfathomable and beyond comprehending how anyone could spend thirteen months in what I come out calling Hell's Hole, and still be able to see straight, let alone think straight. My only explanation here is possibly Matt, Rootie's childhood friend who drowned, whose spirit kept Rootie's head above ground (alas alive).

Like I always say, the most prophetic writers have experienced a deep pain. So far, Rizzuti's is the deepest I know, making his debut novel the most prophetic literature I've yet to read. ( )

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.

For more details about the book, visit site http://www.thesecondtour.com/ ( )