The film Love in Country tells the story of two gay Vietnam Army Sergeants who fall in love while keeping their squad unified and alive despite a new officer’s tactics to sacrifice them all. Richard Gayton, who co-directed and co-wrote with Kurt Braun, has now penned the novel based on his film. Published by Northampton House Press, the book’s dedication alone will grab you in support of the “250,000 gay or bisexual Americans who served in Vietnam; approximately 4,500 of whom died there, though no records were kept.”
Nineteen-year-old Ian Alexander isn’t your typical soldier story protagonist. He “loves boys and is obsessed with war.” In chapter one, he gets a premonition: “Something big is about to happen.” Not won over by college, the only thing he knows for sure: he wants to serve his country. Even when he’s challenged about how the military treats gays, he shrugs it off: “They’ll never know.” After heartfelt goodbyes with his mom, little brother, and former gym coach who has stepped in as a substitute father, Ian enlists and graduates from boot camp. After completing Ranger school, Ian meets Reese while waiting orders to be shipped out. Reese had only dated women up to that point, and when nature beats nurture—sexual sparks fly among them.
Following many war-like conflicts typical of other Vietnam stories, Love in Country comes off as fresh and original, particularly because of the inclusion of strong, gay characters. Besides dealing with the fear of homosexual exposure, Ian and Reese’s relationship becomes an open secret with their squad. Some accept it while others recoil. Still, the number one priority remains true: survival. And they do so bravely and heroically. Other conflicts with religion, race, combat missions, and PTSD also heat up among the squad. The height of drama involves Captain Heinrick, a student of Asian culture, and his traumatic past (disclosed early on in chapter 3) involving his Vietnamese wife and son being murdered by the Viet Cong. His anger management affects his leadership capability, which challenges his soldiers to decide what is acceptable in war. Running headlong into several North Vietnam Army regiments, facing annihilation in a massive firefight, Heinrick orders a civilian killed to protect their presence, and Ian clashes with the captain with a disastrous confrontation.
Throughout this war-torn romance, we are in capable hands with Mr. Gayton, PhD, who came to writing from 30 years as a clinical psychologist working with trauma survivors. His Army Service during the Vietnam War taught him the practice and realities of war. On active duty as a Navy psychologist at Bethesda Naval Hospital, he treated Marines with PTSD. Later, with the Veterans Vietnam Restoration Project, he built an elementary school with other Vietnam era veterans outside of Hue and Dong Ha, Vietnam.
Richard Gayton
Other works include his nonfiction book The Forgiving Place: Choosing Peace After Violent Trauma (with foreword by Marianne Williamson) and The Mind Travelers, and his upcoming memoir Venus Boy: A Queer Psychologist’s Life.
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Love in Country
Richard Gayton
Northampton House Press | September 20, 2024
English | paperback | 223 pages | $19.95
ISBN-10: 1950668339
ISBN-13: 978-1950668335
for blogging on violence, trauma, PTSD, gays in the military,
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