Hitchhiking from Vietnam: Seeking the Ox

Hitchhiking from Vietnam: Seeking the Ox is the intimate account of Vietnam veteran Richard Chamberlin’s meandering journey to fulfillment during the 1960’s and 1970’s.


The story begins in 1975 in the liberal enclave of Madison, Wisconsin. The war in Vietnam has just ended and even though Chamberlin has been out of the service for five years, he is still struggling to find his place in society. The first chapter begins in a run-down laundromat on Madson's east side where the author meets a mysterious character named Ken-Adi, whom he hopes might become his guru. The two of them decided to take off on an adventure together and hitchhike to San Francisco. The trip becomes a spiritual quest and a window into the past. The central part of the book is a series of flashbacks of Chamberlin’s experiences with the Navy’s Seabees in Vietnam. At the end of the story, on the outskirts of Fort Collins, Colorado, a conversation with an old friend helps him put the pieces of his life back together.