Retired journalist to share a coming-of-age memoir
Lange served in a support capacity with the Brown Water Navy’s riverine forces in Vietnam from February 1969 to February 1970. As a member of Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron 11 from February 1970 until his discharge in December 1971, he made Mediterranean Sea and North Atlantic deployments.
Dover Public Library's Visiting Author Series will welcome Dave Lange on Saturday, Feb. 16 at 2 p.m. Lange is the author of “Virginity Lost in Vietnam,” a coming-of-age memoir that is a story about war but without accounts of flying bullets and mangled limbs in jungles and rice paddies. Instead, the stories explore the hearts and minds of the men who went to war in Vietnam.
Lange's first visit to Dover nearly 60 years ago in 1959 had an impact on his boyhood, and it also might have saved his life in a Vietnamese river 10 years later in 1969.
Lange has been a resident of Malvern in Carroll County for the past 10 years. A retired newspaper editor, he now works from his rural home. The award-winning journalist completed his autobiographical account in 2018.
The son of a decorated World War II veteran and a war refugee, much of Lange’s early story is set in the family’s working-class neighborhood of Cuyahoga Falls. With an upbringing that included self-described youthful exploits on baseball diamonds and in competitive swimming pools, these activities were gradually overtaken by less reputable juvenile escapades.
For everyone who grew up in the 1960s, the expanding war loomed as a backdrop to their lives. Lange relates his life to the world-shaking events of that period.
"My father fought in World War II, as did many fathers in my neighborhood. So the potential for serving in the military was known to us," Lange said. "The war in Vietnam was festering even before we were old enough to think about it, but it didn’t sneak up on us. It came slowly and steadily. By the time I reached draft age, it was impossible to ignore it. I could have studied more during my freshman year at Kent State, but I didn’t, and I lost my draft deferment. I knew what that meant."
“Virginity Lost in Vietnam” unveils the travails of boot camp. It reveals secrets of survival, evasion, resistance and escape training. "I often think about incidents when I escaped death by a few inches, by a few minutes and just by plain luck," Lange said, "by the grace of God."
Lange brings readers up close and personal to the consequences of the chemical weapon napalm. He takes them for a bumpy ride with Agent Orange, flies them over the Cambodian border, plunges them into the murky depths of infested rivers and huddles them undercover from a clandestine enemy night raid.
The author said he anguished over American boys killed in action, commiserated with battle-weary teenagers and looked into hollowed souls long before post-traumatic stress was called a disorder.
"I know that many, if not most, veterans are reluctant to share their war experiences, even with their loved ones," Lange said. "Like my fellow veterans, Vietnam is on my mind every day, often in my sleep as well."
After a 40-year career in journalism, writing and editing other people’s stories, Lange neared retirement. "I thought it was time to tell my own story," he said. "As I wrote it over about four years, I often had second thoughts. But I kept plugging away because we’re getting old now, and I believe it’s important to share what I saw, what I did, how I felt, how world events and political decisions impacted our lives, not just those of us who served our country, but everyone who grew up in that era."
After his military service, Lange’s story follows an adventurous hitchhiking journey around the country, his time as a union construction worker and union auto worker before finally earning a journalism degree at Kent State.
"I’ve been a troublemaker my entire life," Lange said. "When I learned that journalism, the pursuit of truth, makes big trouble for liars, I knew it was the right career for me."
No true story about the 1960s and Vietnam would be complete without the ingredients of drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, according to Lange.
This book also is about a white kid from an all-white neighborhood who, through his military experience, came to know the brotherhood of all races.
"Of course this book is about politics," Lange said. "War is always about politics. War and politics always are overshadowed by lies, about power and privilege and about contempt for the powerless and underprivileged."
Finally, Lange said, it is about unlearned lessons that disconnect the present from the past.
A book-signing will follow the program, which is free and open to the community.
For more information or to register, call the Dover Public Library at 330-343-6123.
The Dover Public Library is located at 525 N. Walnut St., directly across the street from Dover High School.