A woman explores the mystery of her brother's death in Vietnam, where he was a civilian volunteer
Two days after Jill Hunting turned fifteen, she lost her only brother, a volunteer with International Voluntary Services and one of the first civilian casualties of the Vietnam War. News broadcasts and headlines announced to the world that Pete had been led into an ambush by friends. When Jill’s mother told her that Pete’s letters home had all been destroyed in a basement flood, the connection between Jill and her brother was lost forever—or so she thought. Decades later, 175 letters surfaced. Through them, and the sweethearts and many friends who had never forgotten Pete, Jill came to know him again.
Finding Pete is one of the great, untold true stories of an escalating war and a young man caught in its sights. This personalized account of a critical moment in U.S. history is the moving story of an altruistic youth who personifies what America lost in Vietnam. It is also a portrait of a family’s struggle with loss, a mother’s damaging grief, and, most of all, a sister’s quest to solve a mystery and recover the connection with her brother. Includes a reader’s guide.
Endorsements:
“Jill Hunting’s story seized my heart. Her narrative of her lost brother is so urgent and compelling—a peacemaker sacrificed in an obscure corner of a terrible war; the mystery surrounding his death; the vacuum created in the life of his surviving sister, who grew up, a journalist, to explore that loss as no one else could; her courageous and dogged quest, which has produced this eloquent and unforgettable book.”—David Haward Bain, author of Empire Express and Aftershocks
“Part memoir, part history, part biography, part travelogue, Jill Hunting’s Finding Pete provides a fascinating view into the early years of America’s war in Vietnam, and a reminder of how deeply this war and its losses continue to reverberate in the American psyche.”—Laura Flynn, author of Swallow the Ocean
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JILL HUNTING is a writer, editor, and radio essayist. She proposed the Book of Remembrance, a sculpture honoring civilians killed in war, for the new headquarters of the U.S. Institute of Peace, in Washington, D.C. She lives in Sonoma, California.
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