M¿ Buddha

M¿ Buddha translates to American Buddha. Based on actual events during 1971 to 1975, this is an experience-based novel of people who lived and served under the Nixon Administration's Vietnamization program. Tom Wilson accepts a job in Vietnam as a training officer for a construction firm during the Vietnamization Program. During his travels throughout Vietnam to effect turnover of the firm's massive communication sites, Tom is protected by a mysterious underground anti-communist group. At the onset of the Easter Offensive by the North Vietnamese in 1972, Tom is activated as a Marine Corps Reservist, and serves on and off active duty as an advisor during his two-year assignment. After his wife returns to the United States to recover from hepatitis, Tom gets involved with a female journalist who is also seeking her husband, a flyer shot down somewhere in South Vietnam. At the same time, a rogue CIA Station Chief becomes enamored with the reporter, while also seeking to find her husband. But he vows to eliminate the reporter's husband if found, as well as an interfering Tom, when the time comes. A climax is reached when the husband is discovered in a VC prison camp. Back in the United States and disgruntled by conditions there, Tom discovers that the reporter remains in Vietnam as the country is in the midst of the final North Vietnamese invasion that eventually results in the fall of South Vietnam to the Communists. Tom immediately returns to Vietnam with his long-time friend and fellow Marine advisor. They find the reporter as the last helicopter leaves the U.S. Embassy in Saigon. The author conveys Tom Wilson's ordeal from a personal perspective, providing insight into the anomalies and nuances that affect counter-culture involvement.