Cry for the Water Buffalo

ISBN: 978-0-615-31647-5  Retail: $15.95

Available wholesale from Moki Lane - 920.688.3394

A Vietnamese family is decimated by the war around them and a sniper caught up in the military machine. Children, parents, politicians and soldiers are shaped by the war, driven by it, and, worst of all, never freed from it. Cry for the Water Buffalo is reminiscent of the U.S. Civil War when families were divided by ideology, allegiance and necessity.

This is a work of contemporary historical fiction that moves from the fighting of the Vietnam War into the lives of today’s still struggling immigrants and soldiers who share the persistent and often unrecognized residuals of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). Haunting!

Jim Zitzelsberger served two tours of duty in Vietnam with Naval Mobil Construction Battalion (MCB) 128 stationed at Da Nang and Quang Tri during the pivotal years of 1967, ’68, and ’69.



Cry for the Water Buffalo: Overview

In Vietnam, a family is torn apart by the war around them, the side each chooses to serve, and a sniper’s rifle. Children, parents, politicians and soldiers are shaped by that war, driven by it, and, worst of all, never freed from it. This is a work of contemporary historical fiction inasmuch as it moves from the fighting of the Vietnam War into the lives of today’s still struggling immigrants and soldiers who share the persistent and often unrecognized residuals of that conflict.

An heirloom comb, carried by the fortunes of war, transcends its immediacy of being a talismanic protector by intertwining the lives of friend and foe. Whether it has magical power or not, its timely appearance punctuates the pivotal turnings of the story and the actions of its current holder. After centuries of maternal bequeaths, the carved ivory is handed from mother to son and son to assailant before it is eventually brought to the U.S. as a prelude to the thousands of Vietnamese refugees airlifted to safety.

Ironically, safety does not eliminate the experience of war and participants are doomed to repeat those experiences through time and recollection. Some cannot cope and are driven to distraction or suicide while others struggle in the aftermath trying to rebuild their losses of family, friends and future.

When the anti-hero of this story, a U.S. soldier from the chimney of Idaho, falls in love with the sister of his last target in Vietnam, little does he know that she, the heirloom comb and his combat flashbacks will drive him into eternity three decades later.

Only then, as the comb and its connections are broken, do the teeth of action, reaction and retribution fall at the feet of those early survivors who have become the ultimate casualties of the war.