A Military Fiction Story about Love, War and Redemption
Book #4 of The Vietnam War Series, Raeford’s MVP is a story of love, war and redemption. Guaranteed to make you laugh and cry, this book takes readers on a special journey with Sergeant Billy Coker from his last thirty days in Vietnam, back home to America and into the seemingly futureless void of post-traumatic stress. A military fiction story which is by turns deadly serious and side-splittingly funny, Raeford’s MVP introduces readers to the post-Vietnam world of a nineteen-year-old paratrooper who must find life after war.
Coker spends his last days in Nam reflecting on his high school years and realizes that his obsession with girls is what caused him to end up in Vietnam. Billy must now pay the price for those wasted years. With no direction, living day-to-day and with no vision of the future, he attempts to make sense of the horrors of battle and the guilt of surviving. Fighting, loving, and wandering across the country after his tour of duty, he sees only a meaningless life where no one seems to understand his terrible experiences in the jungles of Southeast Asia.
Plagued by post-traumatic stress and psychological impotence, Billy begins a search to find himself as well as some of his old buddies and someone special he lost along the way. He embarks on an adventurous journey as he seeks a meaningful future, only to reach bottom as he contemplates ending his life.
Raeford’s MVP, is a departure from the first two novels in the Vietnam War Series. Although the first six chapters of this story take place in Vietnam, author Rick DeStefanis takes his readers on a young veteran’s subsequent journey toward recovery. By infusing what could have been an otherwise mundane subject with humor and tenderness, he has produced another top-notch “page-turner.” Military fiction at its finest, Raeford’s MVP has been reviewed and recommended by veterans from privates to generals, as it delves deeply into the world of post-traumatic stress in such a way that readers find tears and laughter on the same page. Read it. You will be rewarded.
A Reader’s Review of Raeford’s MVP
By: Steve H
5.0 out of 5 stars Insightful, meaningful, funny, painful
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 31, 2024
This is a story of physical and emotional trauma, both of which are cured by love. The main character is just cool enough to be tolerated at the fringe of the coolest beings in his high school year.
He’s also sensitive enough to despise them and empathize with those who definitely don’t fit the model. He’s friendly with one plain, overweight, girl but limits his friendliness to ensure that it doesn’t wreck his “cool enough” status. This cynicism is offset by an awareness and self-disapproval of his behavior and a complete ignorance that what he offers is more than enough and even highly valued.
His strength of character and empathy for those close around him are further challenged and developed in Vietnam. He’s brave to the point of heroism, selfless and committed to his group and, ultimately, these qualities lead to self-isolation in the aftermath of his service.
There are periods in the book when it seems unrelievedly dark and hopeless and I found I had to read it slowly, in small bites. The sensitivity and empathy are choked by cynicism and an extreme sense of personal unworthiness that can be hard to take.
A long time ago, I read a book called “Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance”. It left a mark on me, and this book has, too. It has a similar narrative quality with a sense of personal agony that, perversely, illuminates the story rather than choking it. It’s so well written. It describes issues which we still struggle with today and probably always will.
And through it all, there’s a love that is selfless, unrestrained in its quality yet restrained in its application – a most “loving” sort of love.
It’s one of the very best books I’ve read, and I hope everyone who sees it on the shelf picks it up and also reads it.