Interview date: 31 March 2022
Joe Tedeschi's first book recounts how his 1966 combat tour in Vietnam was cut short by a violent airplane crash, chronicles this near-death experience, then leads to reflecting for fifty-five years on the ultimate question, “Why am I (still) here?”
Joe Tedeschi began his college education at St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, before initiating his army career at West Point, graduating in 1957. Eventually earning his army-sponsored Master of Science degree in physics from Iowa State University (1963), he went on to fill army assignments in nuclear, biological, and chemical operations and materiel acquisition.
Upon retiring from military service as a regular army colonel, he worked fourteen years in the defense industry developing a counter-battery radar for three European nations. He then transitioned to a higher calling as he entered the deaconate program in his Catholic Diocese of Trenton, New Jersey, where he served for eighteen years, retiring in 2020.
MWSA: How long have you been associated with MWSA?
I recently joined MWSA in February 2022.
What was your inspiration for your book "A Rock in the Clouds"?
My answer is best expressed in the beginning of my book. After establishing the fact that I was a survivor of an horrific airplane crash in Vietnam, I go on to explain my purpose and inspiration for writing this book. Excerpt from my book:
"All airplane crashes are tragedies, but under wartime conditions, the resulting chaos is magnified. The tempo of war demands that all the pieces be put together quickly, and the brisk pace of war continues. But for the survivors involved in the crash, the pace of the war suddenly stops, and they have the remainder of their lives to reflect and ponder numerous unanswered questions.
It has taken fifty-five years for me to piece together a more complete account of the crash. The details evolved in bits and pieces over the years and involved many people who helped me. I was able to obtain photos and accounts of the crash from others who survived or who were witnesses on the scene. This information and my own recollections allowed me to develop and document a comprehensive account of the crash details.
As I worked on this account, it began to evolve into much more than just a description of an airplane crash. In the evolution, I began to realize it was becoming a very human story of the people involved and the impact it had on their lives and families after the crash. Not a day goes by since the crash that I do not reflect on that shattering instant of my life.
In a moment of forced reflection as I lay in a hospital bed recovering from my injuries, I solemnly resolved to find some meaning and purpose to what had suddenly happened to me. My immediate resolve that day was a renewed commitment to my family, the sustaining foundation of my life. My family will always provide sufficient meaning and purpose for all things, including surviving the crash. But I needed something more to fully satisfy my resolve.
Judeo-Christian principles of faith have informed and sustained me all my life, guiding me where to seek my answers. I began to search out the roots of that faith to find these answers. My spiritual life since the beginning has been one of continual conversion, and my search forced me to look back at my life both before and after the crash.
I began to realize that many of my spiritual life experiences before the crash were part of a path that led me to that fateful day. I was thirty-two years old when the crash occurred, and, writing this at eighty-six, I can look back on a life marked by numerous and various shifts and changes; but at each stage when decision and risk were involved, I was guided by something bigger and outside of myself.
I unabashedly thank God for his steadying hand at every turn. A war never ends until the last story is told. Mine is certainly not the last story to be told of the Vietnam War, but I sincerely hope it will be one of the last."
How long did it take you to write this book?
It all began in 1987, 21 years after the airplane crash when I wrote my first account of the crash as a vignette of my Vietnam experience to leave to my grandkids. My initial attempts were basically just descriptive of the crash and the ensuing rescue based on the limited sources and materials available to me when I first put pen to paper. Since I was medevaced right after the crash in 1966, I knew very little about the details of the crash or the other people involved. Over time, I was given opportunities to speak and write about the crash. Those opportunities jogged my memory and the written account I started began to blossom into a more formal memoir. I was inspired by all of those opportunities to learn as much as I could about the crash and compelled me to seek out more sources of information.
At just about the same time, I discovered the power of the internet search engines which were just evolving, and I began to gather a considerable amount of new information about the crash and the personnel involved. As I gathered this information, the memoir began to evolve into much more than just a description of an airplane crash. It was becoming a very human story of the other people involved in the crash, and I realized I had a story to tell. The Covid lock downs in 2020-21 gave me just the right opportunity to pull it all together and write my book.
What type of reader audience do you seek?
What started out as a vignette of the Vietnam war turned into the story of my surviving an airplane crash wrapped around my life faith journey. Hopefully my book will appeal to a faith-based audience as well as all Vietnam era veterans and their families. Also, I’m hoping my book will be of interest to a wide realm of service academy graduates and their families as well.
What goals did you have in mind when you wrote this book?
The story of surviving an airplane crash has potential to hold the interest of an audience of readers curious about what it's like to live through such an experience and survive. It's a worthy goal for a writer to strive for, and I did my best to describe that experience in my book. But I must admit to a deeper goal I had in mind when I wrote the book. I wanted to share my spiritual message to a wide faith-based audience. I felt comfortable that the spiritual message I was trying to impart would be readily recognized and accepted by my family and friends garnered over a lifetime. But, there is such a wide range of spiritual faith and understanding in any potential reading audience, it became my hopeful goal to tell my story of faith both before and after the crash in such a way that it would be reasonable and understandable to a broader reader base.
How long did it take you to write this book?
It all began in 1987, 21 years after the airplane crash when I wrote my first account of the crash as a vignette of my Vietnam experience to leave to my grandkids. My initial attempts were basically just descriptive of the crash and the ensuing rescue based on the limited sources and materials available to me when I first put pen to paper. Since I was medevacked right after the crash in 1966, I knew very little about the details of the crash or the other people involved. Over time, I was given opportunities to speak and write about the crash. Those opportunities jogged my memory and the written account I started began to blossom into a more formal memoir. I was inspired by all of those opportunities to learn as much as I could about the crash and compelled me to seek out more sources of information.
At just about the same time, I discovered the power of the internet search engines which were just evolving, and I began to gather a considerable amount of new information about the crash and the personnel involved. As I gathered this information, the memoir began to evolve into much more than just a description of an airplane crash. It was becoming a very human story of the other people involved in the crash, and I realized I had a story to tell. The Covid lock downs in 2020-21 gave me just the right opportunity to pull it all together and write my book.