On this episode of Speaking with the William Joiner Institute, we are excited to bring you an interview with Ted Hammett Ph.D. about his new book, Entwined with Vietnam: A Reluctant Marine’s Tour and Return, set to be released in May of 2022. Ted was a student of History at Harvard, and a member of its Marine Corps Officer Candidate Program, when the U.S. entered the conflict in Vietnam. Despite having reservations about taking part in the war, Ted chose to remain enrolled in the Officer Candidate Program due to pressure from his father, and eventually served as a supply officer in Vietnam.

During his time there, Ted began to hate Vietnam and its people; but after finally returning home, he retained guilty feelings about what had happened in Vietnam. Ted would later get a chance to go back on what he calls his "second tour": only this time, he was there to battle an enemy of all people... HIV/AIDS.

We hope you join us in listening to Ted's powerful story!

The following is an official description of Entwined with Vietnam: A Reluctant Marine's Tour and Return

In 1968, Theodore M. Hammett went to a war he believed was wrong. He had succumbed to his father’s threat to disown him if he withdrew from a Marine Corps officer candidate program. Hammett was a supply officer at a field hospital near the DMZ where he saw plenty of the bloody wages of this tragic war. He employed thievery, bargaining, and lies to secure supplies for his unit and (barely) retained his sanity with the help of alcohol, music, and the promise of returning home to his girlfriend. He hated the war but also hated the Vietnamese people.

Later, Hammett felt guilty for his country’s devastation of Vietnam and his own mistreatment of Vietnamese people. He had the chance to go back, live in Hanoi for five years and work with the Vietnamese government and civil society organizations to improve policies and programs for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment. He got to know many Vietnamese people as colleagues, friends, and neighbors. He came to love the country, its scenic beauty, its food, and its culture. This is the first Vietnam memoir by someone who served in the war and later returned to live and work in Vietnam. In recounting his “two tours,” Hammett shows how he struggled with his feelings and doubts about himself and the war and how Vietnam ultimately became his second home.

Theodore M. Hammett graduated from Harvard College in 1967 and served as a Marine Corps officer from 1967 to 1970. After obtaining a Ph.D. in American History from Brandeis University in 1976, he had an almost forty-year career in criminal justice and public health with Abt Associates, a Cambridge-based policy research and consulting firm. Hammett lives in a Vietnamese-style three-generation family household in Watertown, Massachusetts.