Because traces James Wells’s emotional and spiritual odyssey over decades to discover the events of his father’s death in Viet Nam, occurring when the author was only nine. A masterpiece of sleuthing, his account often reads like a whodunnit, not so much to unravel an alleged CIA coverup of a foreign services officer’s attempts to eradicate corruption among Vietnam’s provinces during the exigencies of war but ultimately to unearth the spiritual truths that bind a son to his father, a husband to his wife. Step by painful step, Wells the detective follows the scent and penetrates the hedges of classified material and conflicting official accounts to reconstruct likely truths through elusive sources. These include the 400 letters a loving husband sent his wife as well as first-hand post-war accounts from witnesses on both sides, all to discover the actual circumstances leading to his father’s death. In the process he revitalizes his own faith, gaining an understanding of a deeper spiritual wisdom that transcends cultures. This book is a compelling read. — Richard Taylor, author of Fathers and Kentucky Poet Laureate
As with many young men, when James Wells lost his father at such a young age of nine, the event was both tragic and traumatic—one that was to become a lifelong obsession. James wanted to learn who his father really was, what he was like, and why there were suspicious conflicts between the government’s official story and those of eyewitnesses of the plane crash that killed his father and others on board.
The result of his search is Because, an incredible book that leads us on that amazing individual journey but opens up even greater questions about the workings of our government, especially the CIA. Because reads like a great page-turner mystery novel. Through it, we learn, as James did, facts and events that may shock us but demand our close attention. — Lee Pennington, Kentucky Poet Laureate, three-time nominee for the Pulitzer Prize
One of the best whistleblower stories ever. This page-turner tells the real-life story of Jack Wells, who died in the service of his country on a mysterious plane crash in Vietnam, and is filled with wartime whistleblower heroism, spy intrigue and a love story, all in one.
Brilliantly told by Jack’s son, James Wells, who discovered his father was a wartime whistleblower who reported and fought corruption that jeopardized the lives and safety of refugees in Vietnam. We learn about the moral courage and emotional agony that every whistleblower goes through as told in letters that Jack wrote to his wife, Betty Wells.
We need more whistleblower stories like this. Not only because we need more anti-corruption whistleblowers, but because we need to be reminded that the world is filled with good people, like Jack Wells, who care about humanity and want to do the right thing. — David Colapinto, whistleblower attorney and co-founder of the National Whistleblower Center
James Wells’ tireless investigation into his father’s mysterious death in Vietnam in 1965 leads him on a spiritual quest to know the man he can barely remember. Wells brilliantly weaves a story of corruption, deceit and mystery into discovery, revelation, and the rescue of the human soul. — Daniel P. Sullivan, author of The Murder of the Real Jack Ryan
This book is an awe-inspiring and unforgettable example of researched family history: a decades-long quest to get answers about a father’s life and mysterious death, augmented with deeply imagined scenes that enliven key moments in his life narrative, and a spiritual search for the release of complex grief. The sum of these parts is an affecting, haunting, and beautiful testament to the hole a man has left in the universe as well as a larger meditation on those courageous humans who stand up for ethical conduct in the face of serious resistance. — Sonya Huber, author of Opa Nobody
Because takes the reader on a remarkable journey through the darkest days of the Vietnam conflict and personal anguish and grief. Wells provides a compelling retelling of his father’s final days interwoven with the account of his own search for peace. As he seeks facts of his father’s life and death through his faith, Wells discovers that we can know even those who have departed from us, even as we find ourselves. — Rev. Dr. Christian M. M. Brady, author of Beautiful and Terrible Things
The shifting landscape of corruption during the war in Vietnam made it difficult for an honest man to keep his balance. In those days, too much honesty could get a man killed. Through letters and decades of research, James Wells meticulously traces the events and often conflicting accounts surrounding the circumstances that led to his father’s death. A Public Safety Advisor working for USAID, Jack Wells was a no-nonsense career soldier tasked with implementing a national anti-corruption and refugee security program that ruffled more than a few feathers.
In Because, Wells’s captivating and evocative prose draws the reader into his father’s unfolding story and his own journey to find out the truth. Because demonstrates that in the fog of war, what may officially be reported as casualties from enemy fire may instead be murder to cover up the crimes and misdeeds of others. — Michael Braswell, author of The Memory of Grace
As a U.S. military intelligence analyst in Saigon in 1967-68, I never imagined that my year in Vietnam would change my life forever. From a trusting young soldier who believed America could do no wrong, I gradually became a skeptic, questioning not just U.S. policy but the tragic and unnecessary consequences of the war. Not satisfied to accept official information about his father’s role during the war, James Wells has undertaken a personal quest for the truth. His efforts to uncover his father’s untold story should inspire the rest of us to seek the truth no matter how daunting the challenge. — Chuck Searcy, a Vietnam vet, co-founder of project RENEW that focuses on the mitigation of war legacies, including UXO and Agent Orange/dioxin, and President of Chapter 160 of Veterans For Peace.
After discovering a trove of letters in his mother’s home, author James Wells seeks the true cause of his Vietnam War hero father’s untimely death. This is an edge-of-your-seat tale that will warm your heart and make you ponder, what parts of your father did you inherit? What parts did he never explain? Are the spirits of those we’ve loved and lost still among us, helping us build their legacy? Woven vividly via his father’s letters, official declassified government documents and interviews with relatives and eyewitnesses from both sides of the war, Wells finds much more than he bargained for in this incredible story. Though he may have set out to find what or who killed his father, he also discovers what motivated him to truly live.” — Laura Carney, author of My Father’s List: How Living My Dad’s Dreams Set Me Free
What happened to Major Jack J. Wells in Vietnam on September 27 1965? That is the question that has plagued his son, James Wells, for decades. It has been an obsession with him and has dominated his life until, finally, he has undertaken an exhaustive investigation and has written this book in an attempt to lay his father’s ghost and set the record straight – a record that officialdom has refused to reveal.
Pretty well everything important that James has written in this book stacks up and is corroborated by the details he has collected. Even the story in the final chapter, drawing together all the threads and tracking that last fateful journey on the twin-engined Beechcraft, can be largely deduced from the painfully gathered pieces of evidence that James has assembled. — Michael Boddington, founder of Cooperative Orthotic and Prosthetic Enterprise (COPE) & former Advisor on Disability and Rehabilitation to the Prime Minister, Vientiane, Laos.
James B. Wells 