Doc Jackson's Letters Home: A Combat Medic's 1968 Letters from Vietnam (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780692413838)

Jerome J. Jackson: Oregon born Doc Jerome J. Jackson, 1968 combat medic with the Fourth Infantry Division in Vietnam, awarded Combat Medics' Badge for providing medical aid while under enemy fire, wrote letters home to mother, Hazel Jackson, a schoolteacher and Oklahoma dust bowl exile. Tells wartime recollections to author Crooker. B.A. in architecture, career as project manager, formal study to become a skilled oil painter. Late in life calling to the ministry led to becoming a Masters of Divinity trained part-time preacher. Post-traumatic stress disorder casualty, and wheelchair bound victim of Parkinson's disease caused by exposure to the toxic defoliant, Agent Orange. Four times married and divorced. Father to Blane, Chris, and Tim. Intentionally reclusive life in mountains with chickens, ducks, goats. Son and daughter-in-law, Tim and Mary his caregivers, and his granddaughter Chelsee his perpetual motion comic relief. Rescue dog, Eli the cuddly companion of his lap and bed. When between wives two and three, Jackson had intermittently been a mercurial paramour of Crooker. Constance Emerson Crooker: Oregon resident, author, retired lawyer, raised in four of the New England states, Crooker's Emerson ancestry is in the Ralph Waldo Emerson family tree. Reed College B.A. in art history. J.D. and career as a bilingual (English/Spanish) lawyer dedicated to giving voice to the voiceless in the face of crushing power. Author of books and articles on outdoor travel, coping with failing health (www.melanomamama.com), and legal subjects such as gun rights and gun control. During Chris and Tim's childhoods, caring mother figure during allotted child custody weekends with Jackson, their peripatetic father.