Veterans
Richard Boes Memorial Award-Winning Book 2011
A Haunting Beauty: Vietnam Through the Eyes of an Artist
The 2011 Richard Boes Memorial Award goes to James John Magner for his book A Haunting Beauty: Vietnam Through the Eyes of an Artist (ISBN 978-1461057543). The award is a $200 cash prize for best debut book by a veteran (fiction or memoir) and is sponsored by Modern History Press. An excerpt from Magner’s book will appear in an upcoming issue of Recovering The Self: A Journal of Hope and Healing. The contest is administered by Reader Views Inc., which includes a general book award contest as well.
Joseph Yurt’s review at Reader Views noted: “This is a beautiful read about a subject that has been dominated in its documentation by its horror. Now, readers can share another sense of what it was all about.”
Richard Boes (R.I.P.)
Richard Boes enlisted into the US Army and served in Vietnam in 1969 – 1970 with the First Air Cav. He is the author of two books, The Last Dead Soldier Left Alive (2007) a firsthand inquiry into why thousands of Vietnam veterans have committed suicide and Last Train Out (2008). Right up to his death Richard was writing a third, In the Valley of Dry Bones. He passed away on Feb 21st, 2009 at the VA Hospital in Albany, NY.
Past winners of the Richard Boes Memorial Award
- 2009 My Last War: A Vietnam Veteran’s Tour in Iraq by Charles M. Grist (ISBN 9781440152689)
- 2010 Sworn to Secrecy for Life: A Young American Spy’s Odyssey through War-torn Germany and Russia by Charles Joseph Fickey (ISBN 9781432761189)
