Title: UNEXPECTED
PRISONER: Memoir of a Vietnam Prisoner of War
Genre: Memoir
Author: Robert
Wideman
Publisher: Graham
Publishing Group
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About the Book:
When
Unexpected Prisoner opens, it’s May
6, 1967 and 23-year-old Lieutenant Robert Wideman is flying a Navy A-4 Skyhawk
over Vietnam. At 23, Wideman had already
served three and a half years in the Navy—and was
only 27 combat days away from heading home to America. But on that cloudless
day in May, on a routine bombing run, Wideman’s plane crashed and he fell into
enemy hands. Captured and held for six years as
a Prisoner of War in Vietnam, Wideman endured the kind of pain that makes
people question humanity. Physical
torture, however, was not the biggest challenge he was forced to
withstand. In his candid memoir, Unexpected Prisoner, Wideman details the
raw, unvarnished tale of how he came to understand the truth behind Jean-Paul
Sartre’s words: “Hell is other people.”
A gripping, first-person account that chronicles
the six-year period Wideman spent in captivity as a POW, Unexpected Prisoner plunges readers deep into the heart of one of
the most protracted, deadliest conflicts in American history: the Vietnam War. Wideman, along with
acclaimed memoirist Cara Lopez Lee, has crafted a story that is exquisitely
engaging, richly detailed, and wholly captivating. Unexpectedly candid and vibrantly vivid, this
moving memoir chronicles a POW’s struggle with enemies and comrades, Vietnamese
interrogators and American commanders, lost dreams, and ultimately, himself.
With its eye-opening look at a soldier’s life before, during and after
captivity, Unexpected Prisoner presents
a uniquely human perspective on war and on conflicts both external and
internal. An exceptional story exceptionally well-told, Unexpected Prisoner is a powerful, poignant, often provocative tale
about struggle, survival, hope, and redemption.
About the Author:
Robert Wideman was born in Montreal, grew up in East Aurora, New
York, and has dual U.S./Canadian citizenship. During the Vietnam War, he flew
134 missions for the U.S. Navy and spent six years as a prisoner of war.
Wideman earned a master’s degree in finance from the Naval Postgraduate School.
After retiring from the Navy, he graduated from the University of Florida College of Law,
practiced law in Florida and Mississippi, and became a flight instructor.
Robert Wideman holds a commercial pilot’s license with an instrument rating,
belongs to Veterans Plaza of Northern Colorado, and lives in Ft. Collins near
his two sons and six grandchildren.
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