Buttermore book shares powerful stories

Larry Buttermore doesn’t like to be bored.

As a schoolteacher, then a furniture salesman and finally an insurance agent, Buttermore kept busy for most of his life. But, when COVID slowed the world to a crawl, the Apple Valley resident felt he had to do something to keep busy.

He had written a short book several years earlier, so he decided to do it again. Little did he know, how big the process would become and how much it would affect him.

“I wanted to write because I was bored. It was COVID and I had this idea for this book in the back of my mind. It was partially a way to honor my late wife,” Buttermore said.

The first book he wrote during that time was a murder mystery – “Over & Back.” It was what he called autobiographical fiction. He made himself one of the two characters in the Vietnam era book, one who helped save the life of someone who had dodged the draft and attempting to live his life hopping between Canada and northern Michigan.

While writing the book, Buttermore really started to think about the war and its effect on veterans. He had been deferred from the draft as a schoolteacher, but had a friend from church that had fought in Vietnam.

“He was the poster boy for everything Vietnam caused. He had Agent Orange related cancers, he had PTSD to the max, and he would come to our (Bible) group and we’d start talking. Something would always come up that triggered him where he would either get mad or start crying,” Buttermore said. “I was going to write an epilogue (about him) and keep it short, so I interviewed him. His interview was chilling. … He was there his year, but during that year so much happened to him that was beyond my comprehension.”

That interview made Buttermore realize there was so much more to the story of the war in Vietnam. So, he decided to interview combat veterans from all four of the major branches of the military. From there it exploded, covering everyone from each branch of the service to family members of someone killed in combat to a prisoner of war. Thirteen interviews later, Buttermore had the makings of a story he felt would honor those men and women who fought but also help their family members or others understand what happened in the many years the United States was involved in the conflict. It became its own book – “Every Perspective Has a Voice, Every Voice Has a Perspective.”

“I think it’s for the veterans, but I also think it’s for the people who don’t understand how veterans were affected during this Vietnam conflict. They could be as young as the children or grandchildren of the veteran whose parent never opened up because of PTSD (Post-traumatic stress disorder). They eventually saw all the agent orange ravages on their parent or grandparent. More for people whose lives were affected by Vietnam that way,” Buttermore said.

“Every one of those 13 families involved were given the opportunity to know they were in the book. They thought it was wonderful.”

“Every Perspective” is available through Amazon or Barnes & Noble or by sending an email to larrybuttermore@gmail.com. The book costs $20, but $5 of each sale is donated to the Delaware organization Stockhands Horses for Healing, which serves veterans as well as children and adults with mental, physical or emotional challenges.