Hitchhiking From Vietnam has an unusual power about it, a sense that the story Chamberlin is telling could be the story of any number of young men of that period, who volunteered for the Army in order to escape the draft and who were less concerned about the politics of the war than about surviving the boredom.

Hitchhiking From Vietnam: Seeking The Ox is the personal story of Richard Chamberlin who, at the age of 30, decided to travel across America by hitch-hiking as a way of finding out about himself, and finding out about the country in whose behalf he'd just fought a war in a place called Viet Nam. The year was 1975 and he began his journey of discovery in the politically and socially liberal city of Madison, Wisconsin – a place that had been, along with Berkeley, California, one of the principal centers of opposition to the Viet Nam War. Hooking up with a man named Ken-Adi that he met in a laundromat, Richard and his new friend decide to hitchhike to San Francisco on a trip that takes on the qualities of a spiritual quest. Writing about his life on the road, Richard deftly incorporates flashback scenes from his time with the Navy's Seabees in Vietnam. By the end of this fascinating memoir, Richard records a conversation with a friend that puts the puzzle pieces of his eclectic life into a pattern while watching horses cavort in a corral at sunset on the outskirts of Fort Collins, Colorado. This is a returning war veteran's skillfully written narrative of how he came to acquire perspective on the events that shaped and influenced his generation. Highly recommended reading that is as thoughtful and thought-provoking as it is inherently engaging and coherently presented, Hitchhiking From Vietnam would prove very useful, practical, and helpful reading for returning veterans of later American military ventures down to and including the present conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.