Former pilot pens second Vietnam book

After flying fighter jets in Vietnam, Pete Hendricks created a home by building a cabin in the woods of the Flathead Valley.

He used writing to create characters that gave shape to the mindset of a combat survivor.

Hendricks, who lives near Bigfork, recently published his second book, “To Any Soldier,” co-authored by Kathryn Watson Quigg.

For Hendricks, the son of a Baptist minister who fixated on producing sermons, writing was natural in his North Carolina childhood home. There was always a book on his father’s shelf that explained a question he had — until he was deployed to Vietnam.

After the war, Hendricks waited for the book that would explain what Vietnam veterans experienced.

“It wasn’t that they were broken. They came home to nothing,” Hendricks said.

“Most people never thought they were broken, they thought the world was broken. Nobody had written that book.”

Hendricks’ first book, “The Second War,” revolved around living with post-traumatic stress disorder eight years after he returned from Vietnam. He described the thoughts of a soldier to a culture that largely hadn’t talked about the disorder.

His most recent novel is based on letters between a Vietnam fighter pilot and a 19-year-old woman, both trying to grasp the war.

He and his co-author exchanged letters in their characters’ voices. When Hendricks received his first letter from Quigg, he took a week to write his response. Then he waited for the next chapter to come in the mail.

The exchange took roughly two years.

“If you’re writing a letter, it slows you down and you tend to go deeper,” he said. “We wanted the letters to loosen up our characters and let them be kids — they were just kids.”

As Hendricks talked about the pilot in his novel, he often switched from third person to first person. The character is in the image of himself — a North Carolina guy who wanted to fly in the Marine Corps.

Hendricks joined the war in 1970 when he was 24. He spent his 20s flying jets to try to stop the flow of supplies from a vaguely outlined enemy.

“It was a relief to write something about Vietnam that’s not all dark, because that time wasn’t all dark,” he said. “We had daily lives outside of being shot at.”

Hendricks flew at night. His mission was to keep enemy roads impassable. He repeatedly hit his targets, memorizing roads he never walked.

In the morning, he drank and performed skits with crew members, then slept.

In the afternoon, he played basketball on a concrete pad — the remains of a building blown apart by a rocket.

“I was the only white guy and the only officer on the team and it was Chicago-style street ball,” He said. “We won the 1970 championship. No one talks about living in Vietnam. Not like that.”

His book wraps up around 1968, when the civil and women’s rights movements were coming to life and the war was broadcast on living-room televisions.

“It was an unsettling time and here these kids were just doing the best they could,” Hendricks said about his characters. “We were all just trying to do the best we could.”

Today, Hendricks lives in a red house outside Bigfork with the woman he loves.

He works as the full-time caretaker for the property he initially bought when Montana became his home in 1992. A shed on the property houses the hundred of letters he received while at war, filed in chronological order.

“In Vietnam I didn’t dream about a job or marriage. I thought about finding a quiet place,” Hendricks said. “A friend of mine said go to the Flathead.”

He bought 20 acres near Jewel Basin and built a cabin and several sheds out of recycled lumber and metal.

The property now is owned by Flathead Valley Community College for its forestry program. Some days, college students walk the woods Hendricks thinned. Often, he is alone, chopping wood, plowing snow or tending to the plants and buildings.

Sometimes when a plane flies overhead, he remembers his time in a jet. He last flew in 1974 when he was 28. He was a captain, ready to trade his service for living on farms.

“That last day I did everything I ever wanted to do in an airplane. I got three official flight violations from the aviation administration as soon as I landed,” he said. “I did acrobatics for 45 minutes and loved every second — then parked and walked away without looking back.”

Although, Hendricks said, his writing could be considered looking into the past.

Hendricks’ books can be found online at amazon.com.