The Second Tour – press release

M. Mesco, Book-Promotions.com

The Psychological Wounds & Spiritual Scars of War

In The Second Tour, Terry P. Rizzuti questions the concept of war and the
strength of civilized humanity in a book where Vietnam echoes current
international warfare.

Imagine Hell as depicted by Hieronymus Bosch: torture, pain, suffering,

debauchery and blazing fire. To look at it, this image is not far removed from
the war-torn Vietnam as described in Terry P. Rizzuti’s semi-autobiographical
novel, The Second Tour.

The book consists, largely, of a collection of harrowing events as remembered

by Rizzuti from his 13-month stint as a front-line Marine. The images of
suffering and pain that are depicted bring home the horrors of this war, and the
pain the soldiers underwent while being reviled by many back home. The
experiences are recalled and told through the book’s narrator 27 years after
the events, during which time he has not been able to come to terms with how
this seemingly short, but excruciatingly intense, chapter of his life has affected
him.

Rizzuti narrates the story in a modernist style with disjointed time and place
frames. This technique has two advantages. Firstly, it underlines the immediacy
of experience in a war zone. Nothing can be predicted or planned. Only the
here and now exists. Secondly, it recalls the high period of modernism, around
the time of that other futile conflict of the 20th Century, the First World War,
when this artistic device was equally used to offer insights into the
psychological wounds and spiritual scars of war experience.

Rizzuti was born in Oklahoma in 1946, grew up in New York and joined the
Marine Corps in 1966. In May 1967 he was awarded a Purple Heart for shrapnel
wounds received. He now lives in Colorado and keeps contact with his military
past through various service associations. The Second Tour took him more than
twelve years to complete. It is his first novel.

Despite its undisputed literary value, The Second Tour cannot be read as a
mere fictional work. In a time when the whole world balance seems to be ready
to change face, it serves as a reminder how easily human morality and
rationality can be suspended when put under exceptional pressure. Its
message goes far beyond the facts described and it builds a natural yet clear
link with the current events concerning Iraq and Afghanistan, becoming an
important lesson about all wars and their consequences, both on mankind and
single human beings.

The Second Tour

Spinetinglers Publishing
ISBN: 978-1-906755-01-0
$15.49
Terry P. Rizzuti
authorsden.com/terryprizzuti
http://thesecondtour.com