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From Bullets to Books

By William L. Richter (reviewer)

The Amazing Adventures of Captain Embers & Chief Zogleman Whop! Whop! Whop!
by Ken Embers
(self-published, 2023)

I enjoy reading and reviewing books by local authors, whether I happen to know them or not.

The books often provide new perspectives on shared experiences, and it is valuable for people in our community to read about the lives and creativity of our neighbors. Manhattanite Ken Embers recently published a book with a lengthy but descriptive title: The Amazing Adventures of Captain Embers & Chief Zogleman Whop! Whop! Whop! I have known Ken Embers for perhaps three decades and have been aware of some of his charitable work in Vietnam years after his military service there in the sixties. I am grateful for his sharing this memoir of that service.

As the book's title indicates, Embers was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam. The "Whop! Whop! Whop!" in the title is the sound of helicopter rotor blades. "Chief Zogleman" was fellow Kansan Mike Zogleman from Burns (near El Dorado), who was in Embers' unit in Vietnam. The Vietnam experiences occupy only about the first third of the book. The second third relates Embers' life after Vietnam: service as an instructor pilot stateside; study in France; graduate school at Kansas State University; teaching "baker's math" and English as a Second Language at the American Institute of Baking in Manhattan; returning to Vietnam with other veterans on a project to establish libraries there.

The remainder of the book draws on reminiscences of other veterans, mostly those with whom Embers served, and of photographs. These reflections on their lives before, during, and after Vietnam greatly complement Embers' account. Collectively, they provide a picture of a small slice of a generation of young Americans who served and returned and can now reflect on those experiences.

Chapter ten relates how Embers and some fellow veterans became involved in the Library of Vietnam Project. "One day in 2010," he writes, Mike Meyer walked into my office. He represented the Kansas Agricultural Hall of Fame and wanted to partner with AIB." (P. 83) Once they realized they had both been in Vietnam with helicopter units, Meyer put Embers in touch with another veteran who had built a school in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Soon thereafter, Embers and Zogleman made their first trip back to Vietnam in forty years. They and others undertook to build a library/learning center in Bong Son, where they had been stationed. Embers has "been back every year since, except during the Covid-19 lockdown in 2020-2022." (p. 91) He covers a lot in this short (10 pp.) chapter, but I would have enjoyed reading more about this later phase of the veterans' lives and work in Vietnam.

Some Mercury readers might be interested in a related matter that is not treated at all in this book. Three or four years ago, Ken Embers contacted former Mayor (and present Kansas Representative) Mike Dodson. Embers' friend Mike Meyer distributes books and other materials to charities and wondered whether Manhattan might be interested in receiving more than 7,000 new books.

As a Rotarian, Dodson took the question to the Manhattan Rotary Club. The club had just received a grant to support early childhood education and literacy in a six-county region and readily agreed to receive and distribute the books. That book-distribution program has evolved into a much broader operation in the past year. The Community Cares Chest, co-sponsored by the Greater Manhattan Community Foundation, Konza United Way, and other partners, distributes a wide range of goods free of charge to area non-profit organizations. Ken Embers and his fellow vets have had a significant positive impact not only on Bong Son, Vietnam but also on Manhattan, Kansas!

This book is available in the Manhattan public library. I immensely enjoyed reading it and think others will, too, especially anyone old enough to remember the Vietnam War.

William L. Richter is the KSU Political Science department head, Director of the K-State South Asia Center and founding director of the Office of International Programs.