“I came home from Vietnam in September of 1966. In the four decades since then, I never came to grips with the impacts of my experience there.”
Mon Cochran
As a Harvard freshman in 1960, Mon Cochran signed up for officer training with the Marine Corps, prompted by his family’s history of honorable service and a new president who urged Americans to ask “what you can do for your country.” After nearly a decade of peacetime, he never imagined he’d see real fighting. But in August 1965—after just six months of basic officer training, newly married and stationed in California to learn intelligence work—the author and his helicopter squadron were shipped across the Pacific to the coast of Vietnam. Read on…
Author
Educator
Veteran
Published October 2022
ACHILLES HEEL
A Vietnam Memoir
Achilles Heel is the powerful memoir of a son of New England privilege who served as a Marine Corps “grunt” lieutenant in the early years of the Vietnam conflict. Almost 60 years on, Mon Cochran looks back at a war that left its mark on him and a generation. The vivid account of his 13-month deployment with helicopter squadron HMM-362 — illustrated by his own photographs — ranges from terror-filled missions to pluck troops from “hot” landing zones to the dark comedy of self-serving colonels and alcohol-fueled stunts. Framing that core story is a portrait of the author’s youth and his later life as an educator, writer, and father of two. He became an active opponent of the war but kept his own experience under lock and key—even while haunted by manifestations of post-traumatic stress. The combat death in 1968 of his beloved cousin made a tragic war even more intensely personal.
“We are fortunate to have Mon Cochran’s memoir, and I encourage all to read it. (Full disclosure: I joined the same Marine Corps helicopter squadron in July of 1966, shortly before he departed for home; among my first experiences was a briefing by Lieutenant Cochran as the squadron intelligence officer.) One can imagine the pressure on a recently commissioned Marine in a combat zone, in a strange and alien part of the world, surrounded by cliquish aviators who viewed him as a misplaced outsider. Achilles Heel reveals how Cochran learned the ropes, discarded useless information, and even became chief loadmaster for the proud unit known as the Ugly Angels—running around hot landing zones, pushing young Marines toward the helos that would ferry them to safety. All in all, he’s offered a wonderful narrative, sharing his pride as well as his vulnerability. We can all learn from this captivating read.”
— Rusty Sachs, former Marine Corps helicopter pilot, HMM-362
Fast forward to 2022
Climate science for young readers
After the war, Mon earned a master’s and doctorate from the University of Michigan in psychology and is now professor emeritus from Cornell University, where he taught and conducted studies of early child development. He’s authored many academic books, but in retirement his focus has shifted to the climate crisis and to memoir. Read more…
Download Mon’s e-books exploring climate science and clean energy solutions for middle-school-age readers. Click covers at right.
