Author Jill Hunting with PTPI staff and PTPI Trustee Chuck Theusch at our World Headquarters in Kansas City
The staff at PTPI World Headquarters was thrilled to have the opportunity to share lunch with author Jill Hunting and hear about her book, Finding Pete: Rediscovering the Brother I Lost in Vietnam. Jill’s brother Pete joined International Voluntary Services after finishing college and headed to Saigon. He spent two years there, helping the people of Vietnam and getting to know them, and wrote numerous letters home, describing life in a country that would soon be at war. When Jill was only 15, her brother was killed in an ambush.
The loss was discussed on the CBS Evening News and in newspapers throughout the country. Pete’s death was one of the first civilian casualties of the Vietnam War. It wasn’t discussed in Jill’s family and it wasn’t until years later that Jill was encouraged to explore her brother’s story, and to share it with others. Beginning with the discovery of her brother’s letters home, which she was told had been destroyed, Jill’s book traces the journey that helped her to answer questions she had long wondered about.
Special thanks to Jill for taking time out of her book tour schedule to spend time with us, and for PTPI Trustee Chuck Theusch for making it possible. Chuck will be leading PTPI’s next Educational & Humanitarian Initiative to Vietnam and Cambodia in December.
