The story

A Marines Daughter by Al Hague is a novel about a Viet Nam Veteran Marine nearing his final tour of duty in life. Since his retirement he has come to realize besides his health issues which are significant he has secrets and memories from his past that he needs to deal with. Unable to Unable to resolve them on his own he reaches out to his successful attorney daughter for help and support. The relationship has always been good but it reacts new heights with this endeavor. 

While this is certainly a fictional account the US Marine Veteran reader will be reminded of the time in the Corps. It is important to say that this story could be about any Viet Nam Vet in any branch but authors commonly write about details they are familiar with. Without giving the story away it is not really a war story. It is however, a relationship story brought about by war and the struggles that go with memories of war. The main character  has an enormous struggle with forgiving his country for the memories of the treatment so many Vets received upon returning home.

Here is an excerpt from the story:

“It was a hot and nasty day on the barren, dry and dirty hill about 5 clicks northwest of the airbase at Da Nang, South Viet Nam. Even with the presumed cooler air from the Gulf of Tonkin, an important armpit of the South China Sea, it was stifling and insufferable. Corporal Jonathan Milo, for now an FNG (f------- new guy), sat on a stack of sandbags, writing a letter back home to his family, letting them know that he arrived safely a few days ago. 

Writing a letter in such conditions was not easy. Jon fought against the sweat dripping off his forehead and onto his paper, smearing the ink. Chuckling to himself, he wondered if his mother might believe the ink was messed up from tears falling on the paper. He had to make sure she knew it was sweat. Damn it’s hot and sticky! The humidity is so bad your clothes soak through in minutes every morning. Nighttime didn’t’t bring much relief either.

His actual arrival date was April 5, 1965, and he became part of the 3rd Marine Amphibious Force. Jon had been in the Marine Corps since 1963 and was a very squared away Marine, earning the rank of E-4 rather quickly by Marine Corps standards. He was stationed at Camp Lejeune when the Corps cut his orders to Okinawa. Jon, as his friends and family called him, was a tall guy about 6’ 2”, very rugged and in shape at 185 pounds, at least for the time being. His rugged good looks and quiet, confident manner had served him well in the Corps, and he had always led by example. 

If he had one fault, it was his undying devotion to whatever the Corps and his government leaders directed him to do. His kind of dedication and unwavering commitment was required to be a leader and to set an example for those young men he led every day. Viet Nam was his first combat assignment, except for a short time quelling a civil war in Central America when he was with the 6th Marines at Camp LeJeune. Now his unit's task was to protect the Da Nang Airbase from the Viet Cong. 

Marine Corps units were spread around the base, forming a perimeter of Marines that would be required to not only guard the base’s perimeter, but also to conduct search and destroy missions and engage the enemy. As a squad leader, Jon was responsible for the organizing, training, and the individual assignments of his squad of twelve men. Often the squad, which was part of a platoon of about fifty, was reinforced by a weapons team with mortars and automatic weapons, depending on the mission.
At the young age of 24, Jon had an enormous responsibility not only to his men but also to his officers. Scuttlebutt (gossip) was saying the platoon would be part of a major operation soon and it was a fact in the Marine Corps that scuttlebutt was never wrong. Well, almost never, it depended on one’s point of view. The smart way was not to believe anything until the orders came through the chain of command.”

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