The Ashes of War
By MH Murphy
This story begins on April 28, 1975, just as the great city of Sai Gon and the Republic of Viet Nam were taking their last breaths of freedom during the last two days before surrender, and then on through the next seven years of hardship and changes endured by the South Vietnamese people. "The Ashes of War" describes the plight of the Vietnamese boat people, those who escaped overland, and those who stayed behind and attempted to create a new life in the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam.
$21.95
"Painstakingly and meticulously researched, the book is an authentic and compassionate portrait of a people in turmoil. Murphy has a personal and deeply felt relationship with the country and its people, and this comes over loud and clear in his passionate account of their plight."
— Amanda Jenkinson
About the Author
MH Murphy
MH Murphy is a Viet Nam War veteran who served with the U.S. Marine Corps in the areas around Qui Nhon and Chu Lai in 1965–66. His experiences and the images of Viet Nam’s natural beauty have never left him. Murphy grew up and went to school on the south side of Chicago and in the south suburbs, and attended college after his discharge from the Marine Corps. He decided to fulfill a personal promise and began to write all the stories he had been entertaining people with for years. He wrote a number of short stories and then decided to tap into his fascination with the plight of the South Vietnamese people at the end of, and after, the Viet Nam War.
Read an Excerpt
The setting sun over this city of Sai Gon on April 27, 1975, turned an extraordinary blood red, an ominous warning of things to come. With the dawn that followed, Communist aircraft bombed the Tan Son Nhut Air Base, and a single early-morning rocket strike touched off a firestorm that burned hundreds of homes to the ground. Artillery from the People's Army of Viet Nam (PAVN) continually pummeled the surrounding cities and villages and drove the refugees who poured into our city day and night from all directions.
It was an unusually hot day in Sai Gon, and the Red Army was amassing around our capital city, preparing to lay siege. The Viet Nam War, which had raged on for more than 20 years, was rapidly drawing to its tragic close, and the anti-Communist Republic of Viet Nam would soon be drawing its last breaths.