THE JOURNALIST

Life and Loss in America’s Secret War

Jerry Rose, Lucy Rose Fischer, Sparkpress (AUG 11) Softcover $16.95 (350pp), 978-1-68463-065-3

Passionate and gripping, The Journalist is the story of Jerry Rose, an acclaimed American journalist who gave his life to tell the hidden truth about the US’S involvement in the bloody, divisive Vietnam War. The work that Rose left behind after his tragic death was gathered by his sister, Lucy Rose Fischer, to form this work.

In 1959, in the uneasy days after Vietnam’s battles with the French had ended, Rose set aside his doctoral coursework to teach English in South Vietnam. Arriving in a landscape of water buffaloes and bullet holes, he soon became enamored with the small country. He stayed on after his teaching contract ended and worked as a journalist.

Determined that Americans know, and care, about increasing US involvement in Vietnam, Rose trekked the countryside to interview terrorized Vietnamese villagers who were caught between American soldiers and the communist Viet Minh. Rose also embedded himself among Special Forces. His work defied prominent publications who muzzled their journalists, and he wrote the first major news article that revealed the hell of jungle warfare.

In 1965, Rose served as an adviser to the Vietnamese prime minister and as a bridge between the US and Vietnam. He took that role with hope, and left it in despair. His work earned him awards, acclaim, and a reputation for telling the truth. He put a human face on a war that, in American vocabularies, became “synonymous with failure.”

Profound, disturbing, and humane, The Journalist illuminates the Vietnam War in the words of a courageous, gifted man who dedicated his life to telling the truth, no matter what it cost him.