Peppermint Piece: Vietnam and the Meatloaf
By UHMM
Category: Creative › Storytelling
Tags: Family Dynamics · Trauma · Recovery
An intimate excerpt from my memoir Peppermint about Vietnam, the draft lottery and a brutally bad meatloaf. I tell how my father enlisted to dodge his number, loaded bombs in Vietnam, numbed his guilt with whiskey, and how domestic moments kept family history and trauma alive. Vietnam veteran memoir excerpt, draft lottery anxiety.
Rolly's Take
This blog speaks to those who navigate the heavy intersections of personal history and collective trauma, drawing a delicate thread between the intimate and the expansive. You might find a resonance here if you’ve felt the weight of legacy, a struggle to understand family narratives steeped in conflict and survival. The exploration of guilt, powerlessness, and the mundane moments that tether us to our humanity unfolds with a raw sincerity, revealing a landscape where the echoes of war linger in domestic spaces. It invites contemplation not just of the past, but of how those narratives shape our present and our choices.