GAUVIN VIETNAM MEMOIR RELEASED SEPT. 21
Ray Gauvin of Presque Isle often describes his gifts and service to the community as ways of “giving back,” but few people know the depth of experience from which his gratitude grows, until now.
After years of pondering and processing, Gauvin decided to revisit long-buried experiences of his service in Vietnam, as well as his struggles as a French-speaking child with undiagnosed dyslexia. The result is a memoir that gives voice to victims of not only Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), but also cultural discrimination and learning disabilities.
A Soldier’s Heart: The Three Wars of Vietnam, published by Friesen Press in Vancouver, British Columbia, will be released Sept. 21 at the University of Maine at Presque Isle in conjunction with the dedication of the auditorium in Weiden Hall to Ray and Sandy Gauvin in recognition of their diverse contributions to the future of Aroostook County.
Gauvin's memoir is the story of success generated by determination to overcome unnamed obstacles, first as a child, then a teenager, then as a veteran," Gauvin said in a recent interview. “I finally got counseling for my PTSD and it was like many pieces to the puzzle I’d been dealing with all fell together – my PTSD, the ghosts of my Vietnam war experience, my dyslexia, my French background – so I decided to go ahead and write the book,”. “I hope it will help PTSD survivors, not just military, but domestic abuse and crime [victims]. There is light at the end of the tunnel. You won’t be cured, but you will know how to handle it, what triggers it.”
Looking back, Gauvin sees his determination to succeed in business as an escape from the demons inside him. He moved from insurance to financial planning to an automated payroll company: Advantage Payroll Services. “I had to run away to something,” he said. “The first 15 years were not bad. The business helped.” But in time, he lost patience more frequently at work and at home.
Gauvin lived for years with symptoms of PTSD before seeking counseling at the Veterans Administration clinic in Caribou. “I worked with a psychologist six months before I told her what I did in Vietnam,” he said. “I cried for 45 minutes of the one-hour session.”
And finally, after almost 40 years of marriage, he told his wife, Sandy. He credits Sandy with encouraging him to write A Soldier's Heart.
“Reliving these experiences was extremely painful,” he said. “I was just learning how to deal with them and talking about them was still very difficult, the feelings very raw.” But talking was part of the recovery.
Like veterans of every war, when Gauvin returned to northern Maine in 1969, “Home was like a foreign planet. I couldn’t speak about what I’d been through. I didn’t want to talk about it. I wanted to forget.”
Gauvin draws the title of his memoir from the name given to the aftermath of war experienced by soldiers returning from the Civil War. "In the Civil War, soldiers coming home and suffering from depression were said to have soldier’s heart," Gauvin writes in the preface to the book. "In World War I, it was shell shock. In World War II and Korea, it was combat fatigue. It took Vietnam and its aftermath for the term and our understanding of the condition to slowly turn into what it still is, post- traumatic stress disorder. Only “soldier’s heart” still reminds us of the human being who fought for his or her country."
He also explains the subtitle of the book in the preface: "As with many of my fellow Vietnam veterans, I fought more than one war. There was my assignment in Saigon, and then there was the aftermath of Agent Orange and PTSD. Thus, the title of this book is A Soldier’s Heart, the Three Wars of Vietnam.
The Heart of Aroostook:
A Book Reading & Auditorium Naming event
Wednesday, Sept. 21, 6:30 p.m., Campus Center MPR
Join us for a special evening in three parts, as two County writers help us to celebrate this singular place we call home. Kathryn Olmstead, who has long chronicled life in northern Maine, will kick things off with an introduction and tribute to the stories of Aroostook County. Presque Isle native Ray Gauvin will then share his own story by offering a reading from his newly-published memoir, "A Soldier's Heart," which traces his journey from central Aroostook to Vietnam and back. The evening will end with the official naming of a place where so many in the County have been regaled with countless stories: the Auditorium in Wieden Hall, which will be named in honor of Ray and Sandy Gauvin. Refreshments and book sale/signing to follow.
Ray Gauvin of Presque Isle often describes his gifts and service to the community as ways of “giving back,” but few people know the depth of experience from which his gratitude grows, until now.
After years of pondering and processing, Gauvin decided to revisit long-buried experiences of his service in Vietnam, as well as his struggles as a French-speaking child with undiagnosed dyslexia. The result is a memoir that gives voice to victims of not only Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), but also cultural discrimination and learning disabilities.
A Soldier’s Heart: The Three Wars of Vietnam, published by Friesen Press in Vancouver, British Columbia, will be released Sept. 21 at the University of Maine at Presque Isle in conjunction with the dedication of the auditorium in Weiden Hall to Ray and Sandy Gauvin in recognition of their diverse contributions to the future of Aroostook County.
Gauvin's memoir is the story of success generated by determination to overcome unnamed obstacles, first as a child, then a teenager, then as a veteran," Gauvin said in a recent interview. “I finally got counseling for my PTSD and it was like many pieces to the puzzle I’d been dealing with all fell together – my PTSD, the ghosts of my Vietnam war experience, my dyslexia, my French background – so I decided to go ahead and write the book,”. “I hope it will help PTSD survivors, not just military, but domestic abuse and crime [victims]. There is light at the end of the tunnel. You won’t be cured, but you will know how to handle it, what triggers it.”
Looking back, Gauvin sees his determination to succeed in business as an escape from the demons inside him. He moved from insurance to financial planning to an automated payroll company: Advantage Payroll Services. “I had to run away to something,” he said. “The first 15 years were not bad. The business helped.” But in time, he lost patience more frequently at work and at home.
Gauvin lived for years with symptoms of PTSD before seeking counseling at the Veterans Administration clinic in Caribou. “I worked with a psychologist six months before I told her what I did in Vietnam,” he said. “I cried for 45 minutes of the one-hour session.”
And finally, after almost 40 years of marriage, he told his wife, Sandy. He credits Sandy with encouraging him to write A Soldier's Heart.
“Reliving these experiences was extremely painful,” he said. “I was just learning how to deal with them and talking about them was still very difficult, the feelings very raw.” But talking was part of the recovery.
Like veterans of every war, when Gauvin returned to northern Maine in 1969, “Home was like a foreign planet. I couldn’t speak about what I’d been through. I didn’t want to talk about it. I wanted to forget.”
Gauvin draws the title of his memoir from the name given to the aftermath of war experienced by soldiers returning from the Civil War. "In the Civil War, soldiers coming home and suffering from depression were said to have soldier’s heart," Gauvin writes in the preface to the book. "In World War I, it was shell shock. In World War II and Korea, it was combat fatigue. It took Vietnam and its aftermath for the term and our understanding of the condition to slowly turn into what it still is, post- traumatic stress disorder. Only “soldier’s heart” still reminds us of the human being who fought for his or her country."
He also explains the subtitle of the book in the preface: "As with many of my fellow Vietnam veterans, I fought more than one war. There was my assignment in Saigon, and then there was the aftermath of Agent Orange and PTSD. Thus, the title of this book is A Soldier’s Heart, the Three Wars of Vietnam.
The Heart of Aroostook:
A Book Reading & Auditorium Naming event
Wednesday, Sept. 21, 6:30 p.m., Campus Center MPR
Join us for a special evening in three parts, as two County writers help us to celebrate this singular place we call home. Kathryn Olmstead, who has long chronicled life in northern Maine, will kick things off with an introduction and tribute to the stories of Aroostook County. Presque Isle native Ray Gauvin will then share his own story by offering a reading from his newly-published memoir, "A Soldier's Heart," which traces his journey from central Aroostook to Vietnam and back. The evening will end with the official naming of a place where so many in the County have been regaled with countless stories: the Auditorium in Wieden Hall, which will be named in honor of Ray and Sandy Gauvin. Refreshments and book sale/signing to follow.
