Smallwood has written an extraordinary account of his experience during those thirty odd years, a story that ranges across the Vietnam War, politics, and his own struggles to come to terms with his life, all bound together by the leitmotif of his time in Tan Nhut Nam. Return to Eden describes a journey that will be familiar to most of us who were CoVans, but is, at the same time, deeply personal and unique.
Smallwood's description of the small universe of the Advisor is sharp and clear. Return to Eden is the product of an independent and intense talent, with a perspective that some will not find agreeable. Yet, after reading Tucker Smallwood's essays, anyone who was ever been an Advisor will know that this is our story too, told by a man who is one of us.

Ken Jacobsen - SITREP editor, former Army advisor and president of COUNTERPARTS, a veteran’s organization of men who served as Military Advisors in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War.