Confessions of a Surviving Alien: A Memoir of a Life Defined by One Word-Vietnam

While even the specter of Vietnam and being called overseas was enough to shake some young men to their cores, for one disillusioned, neophyte Marine, it was more about getting into the war and the action than it was about getting out of it. As Jon Meade struggles with his own evolution and regression as both a Marine and a human being, he battles both inner torment and feelings of alienation as he begins a journey through the decades to find himself and explore every possibility of living—and nearly dying—to hopefully reach some level of success.

In Confessions of a Surviving Alien, author Jon Meade goes beyond the memoir to deliver an engaging, whirlwind tour through the maze of life's pathos and its storm of emotions—sadness and joy, pain and regret, guilt and fear, revenge and forgiveness, and good and evil. Nevertheless humorous and however defined by the premise of Vietnam, Jon not only shares recollections from his unique tour in Vietnam and his time just after, where he escorted deceased Marines to their families and final resting places, but he also shares tales of his sometimes surreal life back home and stories of his spiritual discoveries after his tour of duty.

Challenging and perhaps at times unbelievable, it is the story of an ordinary guy with an extraordinary life to share. And in the end, it offers a huge dose of reality—that success in life is merely surviving life, failures and all.

While even the specter of Vietnam and being called overseas was enough to shake some young men to their cores, for one disillusioned, neophyte Marine, it was more about getting into the war and the action than it was about getting out of it. As Jon Meade struggles with his own evolution and regression as both a Marine and a human being, he battles both inner torment and feelings of alienation as he begins a journey through the decades to find himself and explore every possibility of living—and nearly dying—to hopefully reach some level of success.

In Confessions of a Surviving Alien, author Jon Meade goes beyond the memoir to deliver an engaging, whirlwind tour through the maze of life's pathos and its storm of emotions—sadness and joy, pain and regret, guilt and fear, revenge and forgiveness, and good and evil. Nevertheless humorous and however defined by the premise of Vietnam, Jon not only shares recollections from his unique tour in Vietnam and his time just after, where he escorted deceased Marines to their families and final resting places, but he also shares tales of his sometimes surreal life back home and stories of his spiritual discoveries after his tour of duty.

Challenging and perhaps at times unbelievable, it is the story of an ordinary guy with an extraordinary life to share. And in the end, it offers a huge dose of reality—that success in life is merely surviving life, failures and all.