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Paul J. Giannone
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Paul Giannone is a 26 year career emergency responder, planner and public health administrator. Paul received an undergraduate Bachelor of Science (cum laude) degree in Community Health Services from the State University of New York at Brockport in 1974 and a Masters Degree in Public Health with a concentration in Population and Family Planning from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 1976. Paul is a 30-yar career emergency responder, planner and public health administrator. Paul resides in Atlanta, Georgia with his wife Kate and daughter Kara. “Dear Kara is a sometimes searing, often poignant and always engaging collection of stories and incidents from Paul Giannone’s ongoing journey to such garden spots as war ravaged Vietnam, barren Sudan, hopeless Albania and revolutionary Iran to make the world just a little better place, a world in which the real heroes go unsung and the enemy, often, is us.” Bernard Edelman, Editor of Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam. “Dear Kara is a valuable contribution to the literature. It serves to remind the reader that headlines and history are made up of individuals whose personal history is reflected in a geopolitical struggle that never ends and merely changes names. This book is a gripping account of the victims of imperialism that is told in a manner through which the reader risks being transformed by the author. An excellent read!” Kenneth J. Herrmann, Jr., Executive Director, Da Nang/Quang Nam Fund |
Memoir with a message
Robert Harding The Citizen | Posted: Sunday, December 25, 2011 3:00 am
Auburn native Paul Giannone has traveled to some of the roughest and most dangerous parts of the world.
Giannone joined the U.S. Army and served in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. When he returned from the war, he decided to focus on public health. He graduated from SUNY Brockport with a degree in community health services in 1974, then graduated two years later from the University of Michigan with a master’s degree in public health. At one point in his career, he worked for CARE, a leading humanitarian organization.
His commitment to public health has taken him to some of the hardest hit areas of the world: Afghanistan/Pakistan, Albania, Sierra Leone, Sudan and Cambodia.
“Here’s this kid from Auburn who didn’t have any view of the future going to Vietnam... I found that I loved working with people and being involved in public health, especially international public health,” he said in an interview.
Giannone started writing about his experiences in 1982 through a series of “short stories.” He picked up writing again after the birth of his daughter Kara and, in October, he released his book,“Dear Kara: One Man’s Journey From War to War.”
The book serves as a memoir, but also a message to his daughter. As Giannone said both in the interview and in the book’s prologue, he hopes the book outlines for his daughter why he wasn’t there for important events in her life, like dance recitals, holidays and sporting events.
Giannone said there are two themes in the book. One was personal —how he got involved in public health. But he also focuses on foreign policy, saying we need to be “sharp and smart” when deciding to intervene in a country.
“If we’re going to risk (soldiers), there better be a darn good reason for them to go,” he said.
“Dear Kara” takes readers to many countries through stories told by Giannone. One story he shares in the book is sitting in a helicopter heading for Fier Perfecture in Albania. He called it a“sense of deja vu” as he remembers back to Vietnam where he was“hunkered down in a pit waiting for an evacuation helicopter to save a legless South Vietnamese soldier.”
Giannone lives in Atlanta, Georgia with his wife Kate and their daughter Kara.
Online producer Robert Harding’s Eye on NY column appears Sundays in The Citizen.
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