Elephants Secrets and Submarines
Elephants, Secrets and Submarines is an excellent
compilation of the author’s stories. While some are
gripping, others are light-hearted tales. Some are true, some are fiction, but they are all stories that you will read and reread.
Yesterday’s Soldier – New Edition
Yesterday’s Soldier is a Vietnam War memoir of a different flavor. Packed into this book is the story of a young man’s coming of age in troubled times. The author spent five years studying for the priesthood in a religious seminary, then leaves and rather be drafted, chooses to enlist, and proceeds through the Army’s infantry training cycle of weapons and war tactics, which clash with his years of prayer.
Peace is something you have or do not have. If you are yourself at peace, then there is a least some peace in the world” – Thomas Merton
Praise
Tom and his book, Yesterday’s Soldier, make the rounds in the press.
Interview
A discussion with Tom about his Vietnam military experience and what eventually led to penning a memoir.
Interview
On being included in The Vietnam Center and Sam Johnson Vietnam Archive at Texas Tech University
Magazine Review
Critic Henry Zeybel’s assessment of Yesterday’s Soldier for the esteemed Vietnam Veterans Magazine
Interview
Q & A with
The Military Writers
Society
Article
Vietnam Veterans
Online Magazine
“The Veteran”
Article
Complacency Kills
webzine “Shakedown”
Interview
Tom discusses his book and the history behind it with Matt Robinson of “The Writer’s Block”
Revered veterans and authors share their comments on Yesterday’s Soldier.
Yesterday’s Soldier is a Vietnam War memoir of a different flavor. Packed into this tidy book is the story of a young man’s coming of age in troubled times. The author, after five years of studying for the priesthood in a religious seminary, leaves and is quickly exposed to the Draft. He chooses to enlist rather than be drafted, and proceeds through the Army’s infantry training cycle of weapons and war tactics, which clash with his years of prayer. During his attendance at the Army’s Infantry Officer Candidate School he makes a moral decision: He will wear the uniform and serve anywhere, but in a non-combat role. That decision to be a noncombatant puts him at odds with the Army, his family and his Church. The story is of his transformation from infantryman to conscientious Objector and his experiences in Vietnam. He shares his joys and trials along the way, is definitely worth reading.
Mathew Brennan
Vietnam combat veteran and author of Brennan’s War, and Flashing Saber: Three Years in Vietnam, Broken Helmet, and HeadhuntersKeating describes his war and its effect on him in clean detail. His words are personable, yet direct, and brings you right in to his experience. Skills like his are invaluable, so that we may revisit these important experiences in history.
Amber Telford
Firefighter, EMT, and US Marine combat veteran of IraqTom Keating writes with courage and honesty. Not an easy task when you write about things that you don’t want to write about. Wars never end in the mind of those who fight in them. And those around them who witnessed it.
Roxana Von Kraus
Director, AGAPE Writing Workshop for Veterans, Woods College at Boston CollegeA young, patriotic student who has been studying the priesthood in a Catholic seminary for six years leaves to become an army infantry officer in Vietnam. No, this isn’t the plot to the next Hollywood Blockbuster, this is Tom Keating’s life. The belief in his God and his country inspired him to enlist in the US Army during wartime, but his faith and his ideals caused him to struggle to become a non-combatant conscientious objector. Yesterday’s Soldier is his story of serving in the same combat theater as all the other military men and women. Keating uses real language to tell a very accessible story that will put you in his boots. His words show how the US and Vietnam were worlds apart while having underlying similarities. War, religion, and morality are always in the background of his tales, but they move to the surface every once in a while. His memories show a need for understanding others different than us, and our country needs more of these stories today than ever before.
Sean Davis
Iraq Combat Veteran, author of The Wax Bullet War, Chronicles of a Soldier & ArtistPraise for Elephants, Secrets and Submarines
The author has a really natural, smooth, writing style that makes his stories go down easily. This book is made up of some of the stories that he has to tell. Stories that he seems to take an obvious delight in telling. They’re his stories, but they can also become yours to appreciate and enjoy.
Bill McCloud,
Author and poet (The Smell of the Light: Vietnam, 1968-1969,) and a 2017Woody Guthrie Poet and adjunct professor of American history at Rogers State University.
About Tom
After high school graduation, Tom lived a semi-monastic religious life for 5 years at the Holy Cross Fathers Seminary in North Easton, MA. Upon graduating from the seminary in 1968, he enlisted in the United States Army and served one year in Long Binh, Republic of Vietnam. He was awarded two Army Commendation medals and the Vietnam Cross of Gallantry among other awards. Tom received his masters in education at Boston University and became a high school Media Studies teacher. A career in corporate media communications followed.
Tom’s writing career includes the writing program for veterans (AGAPE) at Boston College’s Woods College of Advancing Studies. Tom was accepted to the William Joiner Institute’s Writers’ Workshop at the University of Massachusetts, Boston two consecutive years. His non-fiction story “Convoy for the Con Voi” was published in “War Stories 2017”, an anthology edited by Sean Davis, writer, artist, and combat veteran of Iraq. Tom and his wife live in Needham, MA where he is an active member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Post 2498, Needham and is committed to assisting all veterans.
The Story Behind the Book
My memoir narrates leaving a religious life in Roman Catholic seminary to become a US Army Infantry Officer in the Vietnam War. I had intended to become an ordained priest after six years of education. I was however surprised by the decision not to advance me to ordination and exposed to the selective service draft as the Vietnam war raged.
The journey begins the day I left the seminary and shares experiences from basic combat training to Infantry Officer Candidate school. It was at Officers Candidate School where I had the hardest decision of my life to make – to become a non-combatant conscientious objector. I survived the Army’s systematic punishment (“the Treatment”) during the long months of waiting for a decision in my case. Meanwhile defying the will of my family, the demands of my church, and facing criminal charges by the US Army. Various incidents and some of the people I dealt with at Fort Benning helped to shape my war experiences. While in Vietnam I spent my time living in the relative safety of a large Army installation typing for generals and taking shelter from rocket attacks while on guard duty. I share stories of personal relations with local Vietnamese, life with rear echelon officers and their quirks, and describe a scary combat experience.
This book is dedicated to all who object to waging war and do the hard work of waging peace.
INTRODUCTION TO NEW EDITION OF YESTERDAY’S SOLDIER,
A MEMOIR BY TOM KEATING
I have been on an exciting journey since “Yesterday’s Soldier, A Passage From Prayer to the Vietnam War” was published four years ago. Being welcomed into the world of authors, writers and poets has been a wonderful experience.
The book itself has been well received, and many people have made favorable comments on my journey from the seminary to the war in Vietnam. I was really touched by the good comments from combat veterans.
I believe this new edition of the book will draw a newer, wider audience to my story, a story of the battle for a young man’s soul, a young man who had no plans for war, but planned for peace and love as a priest. Surprised by being rejected for ordination after six years of study and prayer in a religious community seminary, he faced the selective service draft into the Vietnam War.
I was that young man, facing the imminent possibility of being drafted into military service during the bloodiest year of the Vietnan War. I chooses to enlist in the Army, and so my journey of fear, brutality and ultimately, good luck begins.
In this edition, I have added this new introduction plus additional photos, changed the subtitle, and added a final new chapter focusing on my coming to peace with being a Vietnam War Veteran.
Enjoy
Photos
Tom at a defense bunker in Long Binh 
Tom enjoying a PBR at Engineers bar 
Tom at a captured Russian anti-aircraft weapon 
Vietnamese Women repairing bunkers, Long Binh 1969 
1970: Main gate at Long Binh Post 
1970: Main street, enlisted barracks, Long Binh 
1970: Section of the bunker line, Long Binh 
Tom at Seminary 
Long Binh Army Base buildings map 
Enlisted barracks street 1st Logistical Command 
Tom receiving the first Army Commendation Medal 
Tom as graduated Seminarian 
Intro to Yesterday’s Soldier
Back to the Beginning
I went back to where it began. It was September of 1970, four days after coming back from Vietnam. I returned to the seminary south of Boston where I spent five and half years living in a religious community. I parked my rental and walked up to the front door of the seminary wearing my new Army Class A uniform, my rank on my sleeve, and my Vietnam Service and Campaign ribbons pinned over the left breast pocket of my green uniform jacket.
I rang the bell again, but no one answered, so I tried the door. It was unlocked. I went in. I turned and faced the chapel. I thought about this place often when I was in the Army, and especially in Vietnam when huddled in a damp bunker during rocket attacks. It was a refuge for my stress and fear.
The chapel doors, hand carved bas-relief wood sculptures, were twelve feet high, and depicted colored images of Mary, Joseph and the Child Jesus. Joseph held in his hand a model of the seminary building.
I opened the chapel doors and went in. The odor of candle wax in the air told me I had missed the morning Mass. The simple granite altar that I served on many times as an altar assistant was bathed in the late morning light coming from the windows of the bell tower.
Being in the chapel brought back the memory of how the old priests said their Masses in Latin, the young ones defiantly in English. I remember vowing to never say a Latin Mass when I became a priest.
I left the chapel, walked by the small garden in the foyer where the community of seminarians would gather each night after dinner to chant “Salve Regina,” a Latin hymn, in front of the statue of the Virgin Mary that was placed in the garden.
The garden was empty now, the statue gone. No one was in the halls, or in the office area where Father Superior changed my life two years ago.
Intro to Elephants Secrets and Submarines
Honey from Thoreau Country
In the late 1980s I was working my dream job as broadcast producer/director for a high technology company that had its own satellite television network. The company was Digital Equipment Corporation, at the time the second largest computer and high technology firm in the world.
I drove from my home every day out to Route 2, also known as the Cambridge Turnpike, to reach the broadcast studio in Chelmsford where our broadcast programs originated. The turnpike was built in 1807, from near Harvard College in Cambridge straight to the village of Concord.
As I drove along the highway back then, it was dotted with small farm stands on both sides. One could buy fresh produce in the summer and fall, and Christmas trees and wreaths in November through the holidays. One of the farm stands near the town of Concord displayed a unique large handmade sign to attract business:
“Honey from Thoreau Country” it read, in large red letters on a white plywood board. The sign beckoned me, and I went into the farm stand many times on the way home after work.
They sold a little bit of everything there, fresh fruit and vegetables, honey, eggs, milk, pumpkins in October, Christmas wreaths in December, Easter lilies in the Spring.
This collection is like that farm stand, a little bit of everything. There is something sweet, like honey, something seasonal, and some sadness. Part fiction and part memoir. Some stories have been published, some are new for you to read.
I hope you enjoy them. I did when I wrote them.