Vet's Reflections on Life

After the Vietnam War, Russell lived in Everett Washington, having spent the end of his enlistment in Bremerton shipyard across the water from Seattle in Puget Sound. After attending college and settling in civilian life after six years Navy time, it became necessary to return home. Social stigma after Vietnam and finances left a choice of leaning on friends or a return to home to start over at the age of twenty-seven. The return to Nashville helped keep the thread of music and writing alive. Finding adapting to civilian life and work lonely and difficult, he began retreating mentally and emotionally into himself and began writing down thoughts, beginning with a letter to a friend left behind. Typical of letters not mailed and thoughts unsaid, these were collected over the years reflecting on deeper meaning of life experiences, viewpoints of the past, searching identity, and meaning of the present, as each page was recorded anticipation and remembrance, highs and lows of life. Collected by his wife, Suzanne, for family, sister, and Indian friend and mentor, in a volume for the holidays one year. This book is the narrative of those collected thoughts.