From "Narrative Patterns and Mythic Trajectories" by Tony Williams:
"As David Huxley and David A. Willson have shown, 'the comic artist/author has control over the reader's point of view, presents moments frozen in time, and controls the visual means by which the image is expressed....The greater control available does make the comic perfect as a vehicle for propaganda.'" (p. 131)
"David A. Willson, 'The Enemy's Face: Vietnam War Comics of the 1960s and 1970s,' a paper presented at the twentieth annual meeting of the Popular Culture Association, Toronto, March 1990. I am grateful to the author for a copy of this paper." (p. 137)
"According to David A. Willson's REMF Bibliography 2 (March 1990): 91, many Vietnam veterans have created their own oppositional Vietnam comics." (p. 138)
From "A Politico-Poetics of the War Story:"
"Furthermore, we expect noncombat memoirs to pay homage to the combat memoir as the norm. This often takes the form of self- deprecating humor, as in Charles Anderson's Vietnam: The Other War and David A. Willson's two narratives of life in the rear echelon, REMF Diary (1988) and The REMF Returns (1992)."(p. 219)
From "Teaching the Vietnam War:"
"The voices of support troops and rear echelon soldiers, ten times more numerous than actual combat troops, go unheard, though had time permitted, I might have used John Ketwig's memoir And a Hard Rain Fell or David A. Willson's novel REMF Diary." (p. 147)
From "Preface:"
"I am deeply indebted to the following scholars for many invaluable suggestions and critiques: Philip Beidler, Michael Bibby, David Buck, Michael Ferber, Vince Gotera, John Hellmann, David Hunt, Philip Jason, Susan Jeffords, Blake McNulty, John Carlos Rowe, Lorrie Smith, David Willson, and Marilyn Young." (p. vi)
From "Bibliographies and Secondary Sources on Vietnam War Literature:"
"The most comprehensive bibliography of the literature is Willson's Bibliography: War in Southeast Asia, 3rd edition, by David A. Willson (Auburn, WA: private printing, 1991), available from Willson at Green River Community College, Auburn, WA 98002." (p. 324-325)
Almost all the best fiction that has come from this war conveys loss--loss of friends, of comrades, not of the war. The only exceptions I can think of are David A. Willson's comic novels, REMF Diary and The REMF Returns. It is possible that if the United States had won the war our grief, and the anger that accompanies it, would not be as severe as it has been.
From "Acknowledgments:"
"My thanks to poets Bill Ehrhart and Basil Paquet for their assistance, to David Willson at Green River Community College for his help in procuring obscure texts...." [p. i]
From "Warriors Against War:"
"As David Willson writes in his review of Mad Minute, 'Steptoe's screams of outrage have never needed to be heard more than now. . . . I hope they are listening in the Pentagon to this prophet poet, but I have my doubts'" (p. 260)
From "Notes to Introduction:"
"As editor of the Spring 1992 issue of Owen Wister Review (from the University of Wyoming), Jon Forrest Glade published poems by W. D. Ehrhart, Bill Shields, B. D. Trail, and David A. Willson." (p. 323)
From "Teaching the Literature of the War:"
We might want to devote a major unit of a course to a Noncombatlist that would include works focused on officialdom, espionage, REMF, and even alternative service matters, placing Ward Just's Stringer, Nicholas Proffitt's The Embassy House, David Willson's REMF Diary, and the poems of John Balaban on the list.
From "Introduction:"
"Along with the representative works treated in these essays are scores of others deserving of attention. The list, which I won't attempt to give, contains enormous variety. It includes David A. Willson's REMF Diary, a comic portrait of rear echelon service...." (p. xv)
From "Criticism--General:"
"Willson, David A., moderator. Vietnam War Writers Symposium. Video. Auburn, Wash.: Green River Community College, 1987-
The videocassette recordings of this annual symposium are available from the moderator (see Willson's Bibliography, below); they are also held by the special collection on 'Imaginative Representations of the Vietnam War' at La Salle University in Philadelphia (see the 'Special Collections' subsection in the 'Introduction'). Participants include W. D. Ehrhart, Jerome Gold, Michael Lee Lanning, Richard E. Baker, Eva Bowman, and William E. Merritt. Readings and discussion."
"________. Willson's Bibliography: War in Southeast Asia. 3d ed. Auburn, Wash.: Private printing, 1991.
Though privately printed and circulated, this bibliography is the most comprehensive and authoritative listing of literary texts connected with the Vietnam War. Willson not only lists titles but also indicates various printings and editions. The nearly three thousand entries are grouped as follows: 'Novels,' 'Proofs,' 'Pornography,' 'Children's Books,' 'Graphic Novels,' 'Cartoons,' 'Short Stories,' 'Poetry,' 'Drama,' 'Screenplays,' 'Reviews,' and 'Miscellaneous.' Available from Willson at Green River Community College, Auburn, WA 98002." (p. 48)
From "'Act Before the Fighting Breaks Out:' The Feminization of Loss:"
"Because they served one-year tours and not the 'duration'; because they had what were perceived as luxuries unavailable to former soldiers--ice cream, beer, maids, R & R to Hawaii, Australia, or Hong Kong.*" (p. 145)
From "Notes to pages 137-151:"
*"This situation is drawn in David A. Willson's novel, REMF Diary: A Novel of the Vietnam War Zone (Seattle: Black Heron Press, 1988), a parody of Vietnam personal narratives that discuss the difficulties of the war. In REMF Diary, the main character laments the loss of air conditioning, flavors of ice cream, and shirts in the laundry." (p. 202)
"Another notable example of the latter-day-in-Vietnam but non- jungle book of REMF Diary (1988), by former rear-echeloner David Willson --a unique, funny story told by an unnamed neurotic Spc. 4 clerk-stenographer at USARV (U.S. Army Republic of Vietnam) headquarters." (p. 28)
From "Acknowledgments and Notes on the Contributors:"
"Thanks to all the contributors and a special mention to John S. Baky, Victor Reinking, David R. Willingham, and David A. Willson." (p. ix)
"David A. Willson was drafted into the U.S. Army in January 1966. He served in Vietnam as a stenographer from September 1966 to October 1967 with USARV, HQ, Inspector General Section. Since 1970, he has worked as a reference librarian at Green River Community College in Auburn, Washington, where he also teaches classes on Vietnam. He is the author of REMF Diary (1988) and The REMF Returns (1992), and the future work The REMF Comes Home. One of the main reasons he went to Vietnam was to do research for a war novel; he has 6,000 pages of journal entries. [Entries 139, 304]" (p. xi)
From "Bibliography:"
"Willson, David A. 'Sex, Death, and Military Might.' Unpublished paper presented at the PCA/ACA Conference, April 1986, Atlanta, GA.
________. Willson's Bibliography. War in Southeast Asia. Ms., 1991. Green River Community College, Auburn, WA." (p. 541)
From "Preface:"
"Accordingly, this edition of Vietnam War Literature is the product of five persons who used collections from around the nation and, indeed, the world. David Willson and I shared the fiction. His years are 1989, 1991, 1993 and 1995." (p. vii)
From "Introduction to the Third Edition" by John S. Baky:
"Nevertheless, authoring for amusement is not inherently bad, even though, as David Willson cautions us, 'Few novels in this bibliography have any redeeming quality, literary or otherwise.'" (p. ix)
"Bookstore shelves are bulging with Vietnam memoirs and commentaries. By now, former grunts, pilots, nurses, commanders, and assorted others have penned their recollections. REMF Diary (by David A. Willson, 1988) indicates just how deeply this vein has been mined. Likewise, defense specialists, journalists, and academics have analyzed the tempo, tacts, and politics of the war. Is there any space left for historian James R. Ebert? Does A Life in a Year contribute substantially to this literature? The answers are 'yes' and 'yes.'" (p. 1835)
From "The War and the Academy" by W. D. Ehrhart:
"Secondly, while there were presenters that ought not to have been allowed out except after dark and then only on thick short chains with choke collars, there were others that were quite stunning in their clarity and intelligent perceptiveness. College librarian, novelist and veteran David A. Willson gave a hilarious and brilliant paper on the cover art of Vietnam war paperback books." (p.242)
"Meanwhile, among the audience were Lynda Van Devanter (Visions of War, Dreams of Peace), Gerald McCarthy (War Story), Larry Rottmann (Voices from the Ho Chi Minh Trail), John C. Shafer and Dale Ritterbusch (contributors to Carrying the Darkness), and Willson (REMF Diary)..." (p.243)
"Much of the real value of conferences, of course, lies outside the formal program: the chance to renew old friendships and make new ones, the chance to recharge one's emotional batteries, the chance (okay, I admit it) to stay up late drinking beer in the hotel bar while listening to David Willson skewer some unsuspecting novice with his rapier wit (a cliche, but no less true for it)." (p. 243)
From "Acknowledgments:"
"David A. Willson is a fine bibliographer and an unequaled collector of popular culture artifacts that he has generously shared with his colleagues; he is also the funniest and most perceptive man I know." (p. x)
From "Worlds of Hurt - Reading the Literatures of Trauma:"
"Though it can be argued that many noncombat veterans define themselves as members of this group, it is quite clear that there is a line of demarcation between combat and noncombat veterans. This division between 'grunts' and 'REMFs' has been catalogued in some detail by bibliographer and novelist David Willson, author of the novels REMF Diary and The REMF Returns." (p. 250)
From "Writing About Vietnam:"
"Willson, David. REMF Diary. Seattle: Black Heron Press, 1988. The main character never sees the enemy in Vietnam. He is an army office clerk in Saigon. What he does see is the bureaucracy, corruption, and endless paper-pushing of the war that is as much a part of it as the fighting." (p. 84)