The Avant Garde of Western Civ
From a rice paddy outside Chu Lai in 1969 to Iraq after the 2003 invasion, where the author and his family worked in the aid effort. A memoir about how difficult, and how often complicit, giving can be.
Memoirs
David Holdridge
Platoon leader in Vietnam. Patient in a neuropsychiatric ward. Vagabond in Africa. Writer in Montmartre. Humanitarian worker in the Levant. Farmer in Vermont.
Three memoirs, and a fourth being written in public, one chapter at a time.
Books
Paperback and KindleThe Water Above
A severely wounded veteran of Vietnam is released from an army hospital to live out his days, apparently, in the cellar of his parents' home. After an unlikely recovery he ventures out to Africa as an American vagabond, then returns home to seek a fortune in the marketplace. The fury of the pursuit drives him to unsustainable ends and into the refuge of an exceptional woman. Together they break the ties that bind and escape to the war in Lebanon.
Rutherford Travels
A new memoir, appearing chapter by chapter on Substack as it is written. Recent chapters take the author west to Chicago in 1962 and introduce Leonard and his scribe.
About
David Holdridge served as an infantry platoon leader in Vietnam in 1969, outside Chu Lai, and was badly wounded. Eighteen months of hospitals followed, ending with the operations at Hartford Hospital that freed him from the injury.
He then spent forty years with humanitarian organizations among people living through war, exploitation and poverty, with assignments in West Africa, the Middle East and Asia. From 2010 to 2012 he led an advocacy effort in Washington that argued for a transformation of how American assistance abroad is done.
He lives on a tree farm in Vermont with his wife, Annie.
Photo
Writing elsewhere
- SubstackRutherford Travels, chapter by chapter, and new essays
- MediumEssays on aid, war and the West
- Fair ObserverArticles on years in the Middle East
- Bluesky and XNotes and links
Contact
Readers, editors, and anyone with a rights or event inquiry can reach David by email.