From Michigan to Mekong: Letters on Life, Learning, Love and War (1961-68)

This fantastic collection of letters gives us a glimpse back to both a somewhat simpler time, but also a very similar one to our own. The antics of young Jim Hubbard remind us that we were all young at one point, while the strife of his war, Viet Nam, find resonance with today's service men and women, as well as veterans.This book was especially appealing for me as I grew up in and around many of the same places Jim did. It was very interesting to compare Michigan of the 1960's with the Michigan of the 80's and 90's.Finally, the conclusion of the work was especially appealing as Jim writes a letter to his younger self. This was a very introspective part of the book and one that we can all take something from, recognizing and acknowledging that everything we have done in the past has helped make us who we are now.I highly recommend this work for anyone interested in mid 20th Century American history, the Viet Nam War or Americana in general.

James was like so many men I grew up with. Kind, considerate, willing to do his part in whatever situation he found himself in. I graduated High School in ’68, and though he is a little older than me, I understand every word he wrote. James H. Hubbard has given us all a gift. He has given us a real time account of what it was like to live in his time. No filters, no experts, no pundits. Just a good boy trying to make his way in a roiling world. It was so unvarnished I sometimes felt like I was eavesdropping on him but he put it out there so no, no I see him more like the pre-novelist war correspondent George Orwell in Homage to Catalonia. Like Orwell, James was living it, it being a world run by people who had lived through the Great Depression and the aftermath of the appeasement at Munich. We were in a fight and asked not to ask what our country could do for us but what we could do for it. We were told to bear any burden, for a friend, or a friendly nation. We were in a Cold War, though if you’d ask James, it wouldn’t have seemed so cold to him. He was in a hot mess jungle war pressure cooker, though he never wrote that to his Mom or family. He was a good boy who would never frighten his loved ones like that. I get him completely and I thank him for his life and his service. I thank his parents for recognizing the value of his thoughts. I thank him for reminding me that there are people like him who didn’t wait for the draft or having waited and got 310, joined anyway not for adventure, not for praise, not for ego but because it was the right thing to do. His letters demand the answer to the question. Would you do it again? I think I would, I know he would. Good boy, good man.

The fortuitous discovery of the letters of a young Jim Hubbard to his loved ones provide a glimpse into what growing up in midwestern America was like in the 1960’s. It was not necessarily a simpler time as his writings demonstrate. Despite his early academic struggles, Jim eventually found his calling in the military and served his country both in combat and afterwards with distinction. Jim’s love for his parents and his wife fills the letters while the afterward provides an opportunity for insightful reflection that the current generation might not have in future years given the prevalence of transitory electronic communications. Looking back is not always easy but I am very glad that Jim chose to do so in this book. Deborah is to be congratulated for pursuing this project and future scholars of 1960’s America will find these letters very helpful.

A young man from Michigan mails letters home, first from college and then from Vietnam during 1968—a year that shaped a generation. (Think the Tet Offensive, Johnson not seeking re-election, and the assassinations of MLK and RFK). The letters and notes are at times tender, telling, and sometimes troubling. The book’s authors do an excellent job curating and contextualizing the materials, while letting Jim Hubbard’s voice come through. While the words of radicals and the “America, love it or leave it” advocates often dominated the daily conversation, the contemporaneous thoughts of a young man from Michigan now add to the historical record. The volume is lean, but the stories are well developed. Anyone who served in Vietnam or lived through the turmoil of that era should enjoy this book. It is particularly timely in light of the parallels between 1968 and 2020—tumultuous years when the country was figuratively being torn apart.

The book “From Michigan to Mekong” offers the reader a unique opportunity to see life through the letters of a young man of the 1960s struggling with maturity, academics, and college expenses. Jim Hubbard’s letters to his family illuminate a time when our country’s youth stood or struggled to stand on values motivated by family, patriotism, and religion. Many young men of Jim’s generation were called to serve in Vietnam. When others feared being drafted into service, Jim Hubbard volunteered to go to war. Why? The answer is revealed to the thoughtful reader within the letters to his family. Serving as a U.S. Army officer and challenged with enemy aggression, Jim ran into the fray rather than away from it. I enthusiastically recommend reading Jim’s book and believe you will find it unique and historical.

I was born in the mid-1960's and thoroughly enjoyed this book. It gave me a better understanding of the events, times and culture that shaped my parents and grandparents. Jim's difficult time in college and his "failing" only to later succeed through hard work and perseverance, is a reminder that life is a journey, and learning a process. Through these short letters, Jim and the times come alive. When I finished the book I said to myself, "I could call this guy up and have lunch and a beer together..." I recommend this book to anyone who was born in the 60's, has children in college, or has parents or grandparents born in the 60's.