Peter Robert Young |

Peter Young receiving the Soldier of the Quarter certificate [10/17/1969] | Vietnam War, 1961-1975
Army
Base Camp, Special Services, 25th Infantry Division
Fort Holabird, Maryland; Fort Bragg, North Carolina; Fort Dix, New Jersey; Fort Sam Houston, Texas; Fort Ord, California; Alaska; Guam (Northern Mariana Islands); Cu Chi, Vietnam
Specialist Five
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Peter Young was a librarian when he was drafted to serve in Vietnam. He considered deserting the Army for life in Canada but remembered why his immigrant father had come to the U.S. from China in the 1930s and, with the reassurance of fellow soldiers who had served in Vietnam, decided to stay on. He was fortunate to be assigned to a library on a base camp in Cu Chi, though he wasn't totally out of harm's way. Young's reflections on his service--its positive influence on his character and its negative object lesson in the futility of many wars--are thoughtfully expressed in this 2009 interview at the Library of Congress, where he was Chief of the Asian Division.
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