Review: "This Is a True War Story" by Robert K. Brigham

This Is a True War Story by Robert K. Brigham
Published April 2026 via University of Chicago Press
★★★★

Brigham grew up with only the barest of information about his biological parents—what he gleaned was that his biological mother had died young from cancer, and his father had been in Vietnam. This spurred a decades-long search, starting when he was still a child...but when he eventually learned the truth, it was far more complicated, and closer to home, than he could have imagined.

I was realizing that my Vietnam War story was true and untrue. (loc. 2550*)

This Is a True War Story, says the title, and it is. But for years Brigham told himself other versions of a war story—first that his biological father was off at war and would come home and find him; then that his biological father must be a POW. Eventually Brigham concluded that his biological father must have died in the war. Some of this was based on a child's magical thinking, but as Brigham grew older, the research skills he developed for the sake of this quest led him to a career in academia, studying the Vietnam War.

Being adopted wasn't an event. It was an active part of my life and would be with me forever. (loc. 72)

I didn't always understand the assumptions Brigham led with—e.g., once he concluded as a child that his biological father had died in the war, he focused pretty much solely on the war dead rather than also looking for those who had come home alive. I understand that insinct for a child telling himself stories, but less so for an adult with a more sophisticated understanding of the world. Granted, the things I wondered throughout the book (why assume that if his mother had been sixteen—itself not information from a great source—his father would have had to be seventeen or eighteen? when he eventually received more information about his birth, why not include the name he learned in his search parameters?) would not likely have ended his search sooner (and also granted—the task sounds incredibly daunting as it was, and doing things like expanding search parameters to include all soldiers would have been...a lot), but I wondered nonetheless.

Much of this story is about the Vietnam War, of course, but just as much or more is about the trauma of foster care and adoption. Brigham had loving and supportive adoptive parents—but that wasn't the point. The point was that he didn't know his history; he didn't know his background; if there was pertinent family medical history, he didn't know it. He didn't know who his biological parents were, not their names nor their personalities, and he felt this as a loss.

It's well into the book before Brigham starts to make real progress into his quest. I admit that at times the earlier years felt a bit slow, but also, I'm cognizant of the fact that it took me two days to read the book, so I only had to wait until the next day to find out what happened; meanwhile, it took Brigham decades to find any kind of answers. And, again...that's where it gets more complicated.

There is so much I would like to say about the circumstances of Brigham's birth and what he eventually found out about his parents' lives, but that's information that comes late in the book, so I think it's best left out of a review. What I will say is that I'd recommend Claudia Rowe's excellent book on foster care, Wards of the State, to anyone wanting to know more about the failings of foster care.

Brigham eventually got answers, if not always the ones he was hoping for and only after many, many dead ends. But it's a hell of a story along the way.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.