Hey Reader,

If you watched any U.S. sporting events this past weekend, you probably caught at least one player pausing—mic in their face—to say something solemn about Memorial Day.

I believe they meant it. I also think they were cornered by the moment.

What do you say, when someone asks you to sum up war, sacrifice, or national grief in a single soundbite?

For what it’s worth: Memorial Day honors U.S. military members who died in service. But that includes more than combat casualties.

It includes those who died later—because of war. Agent Orange. Cancers from burn pits. Cardiac events linked to decades of high-alert living. Unseen griefs, folded into family routines.

And while I believe those athletes were sincere, I kept thinking about after. After the hashtags fade. After the grill gets cleaned and the long weekend ends. When the families still carry the silence.

An annual reading ritual

My uncle was a Green Beret—an Army Special Forces operator fluent in multiple languages, with multiple tours in Vietnam. He’s been gone more than 20 years. And we still miss him.

Inspired by him, I started a Memorial Day tradition years ago: Each May, I pull a few books off my shelves (literal and digital) and read. Military history, memoirs, war reporting—not to study war, but to understand its cost.

Sometimes I finish the book. Sometimes I just read a chapter. Sometimes I only reread the part I highlighted last year.

But these books help me remember:

• War’s aftermath lasts a lifetime.
• Families carry it, quietly.
• And while Memorial Day is a U.S. observance, the grief it marks is global.

So yes—this newsletter comes late. That’s the point. Because memory doesn’t end with a Monday.

What I’ve been reading this week

​Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, 1945–1975 by Sir Max Hastings (2018) An 800-page, single-volume history that tells the story from all sides—North and South Vietnamese, American, and others. Hastings spares no one from critique. This is the first Vietnam book I’ve read written by a non-American. It’s massive, sobering, and balanced in a way that deepened my understanding.

​The Road Not Taken by Max Boot (2018) A biography of Edward Lansdale, the CIA operative who pushed for a hearts-and-minds approach to Vietnam. Boot doesn’t argue that Lansdale could have “won” the war—but he does explore what the U.S. lost by ignoring him. Idealism, ego, contradiction—it’s all in there.

​Blaze of Light by Marcus Brotherton (2020) The story of Green Beret medic Gary Beikirch, who earned the Medal of Honor after treating others under fire while seriously wounded. Years later, he lived in a cave, broken by PTSD, before quietly rebuilding a life of service. This one’s beautifully written. Not urgent to finish, but I will.

​We Few by Nick Brokhausen (2005) Memoir of a Special Forces soldier in SOG—covert missions in Cambodia, Laos, and North Vietnam. It’s raw, funny, shocking, and unapologetically direct and not for the easily offended. I kept reading—because a soldier who’s experienced the unimaginable knows more about life and death than I do.

War histories as a way of remembrance

I haven’t read all of these cover to cover. I may never. But I return to war histories and biographies every May. Because reading these stories helps me remember what was carried home by people I love. And by people I’ll never meet.

If you're outside the U.S., these stories might still resonate—because war reshapes every place it touches.

And if you're in the U.S.? Maybe reading a book like these is its own kind of tribute. One that lingers past the hashtags. And past the “Memorial Day = unofficial start of summer” vibe.

— Tracy

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