LENOX — For decades, Warren Robinson has shared stories about his time in the Vietnam war only with family and close friends.

For about as long, his wife Margaret has encouraged him to write a memoir about it.

“She’s been telling me that for 30 years or more,” said Robinson.

Robinson set out to do just that a little more than a year ago.

“I feel like a story I’ve been going over in my mind for a very long time has finally been told and put out there,” said Robinson.

The resulting book, “Remembering Vietnam: A Veteran’s Story” follows Robinson chronologically as he volunteers in 1968, goes through basic training and goes to Vietnam to fight.

Most stories about the Vietnam War tend to focus on the battles, the strategies used by both sides, the violence and the conflict.

Robinson’s memoir focuses more on the quieter moments, both between fellow soldiers and by himself.

One passage finds Robinson standing on top of a guard tower at night, serving as a watchman.

In the distance, about 10 miles away, is Black Virgin Mountain.

The top of the mountain was controlled by Robinson’s fellow soldiers, he writes, but the area in between was controlled Vietcong.

He watches multiple firefights break out: tracer fire burning the air, mortars launching.

Above him, a full moon hangs in the sky.

It’s July 20, 1969 and up above him, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin are making ready mankind’s first attempt to walk on the moon.

“On the one hand, you’re in primitive environment, you’re in danger of your life and there’s a lot of things going on around you to distract,” said Robinson. “Then on the other hand, you think about what a huge human accomplishment was taking place on the moon above. It was quite a juxtaposition.”

Armstrong and Aldrin would return to America before Robinson, in some ways making Vietnam further away from home than the moon.

Robinson’s conversational writing style carries the reader through its 55 pages.

Reading it gives the sense that these are stories that have been told on back porches and after family dinners that stretched into the evening.

Another part of the book that shines is Robinson’s characterizations of his fellow soldiers.

One adopts a pet monkey, who becomes something of a mascot for the unit.

Another soldier who receives five Purple Hearts is given the nickname “Purply” by his peers.

Robinson heads to Bangkok, Thailand for a week of R&R with two fellow soldiers.

Which makes it all the more surprising that Robinson has never talked to any of them since.

“I’ve never heard from any of them again,” said Robinson. “We were very, very close. We lived together, slept together, ate together, went to the bathroom together, laughed together, fought together. Then when we left, we went back and melted back into our lives.”

Like many veterans, particularly of the Vietnam War, Robinson struggled to adjust to civilian life when finished his tour of duty.

Part of that struggle was the adjustment from the chaos of the battlefield to the peaceful security of home.

“One day, you’re in this environment of war and hardship and terror at times,” said Robinson. “Then the next day, you get on an airplane and a day or two later you’re back home, you’re enjoying air conditioning, running water, taking a hot bath, eating a meal that not only tastes good but is safe to eat. It’s such a big adjustment, coming from one environment to another.”

Another part of the struggle was the reception Vietnam veterans received once they returned to the USA.

“People didn’t honor you,” said Robinson. “People kind of disrespected you as if you had been guilty of doing something terribly wrong. It was confusing to us.

“They had signs calling us baby killers, we were spat at. Most of us when we got back, we tried to sneak back in town at night, change into civilian uniforms as fast as we could and blend in.

“I think one of the things that most people who weren’t there or aren’t connected with a veteran who was there that have no idea about how we viewed our vets then compared to how we do now.”

Robinson credits his father with helping him readjust.

After he was home for awhile, his father asked him to come work at the Bank of Lenox.

Robinson would go on to work there 41 years, eventually serving as president and chairman.

“It proved to be my salvation,” he writes in the book.

All the profits from the book are being donated to the Wounded Warrior Project. Robinson has set a personal goal of donating $5,000.

Robinson is promoting the book, doing book signings and speaking engagements.

“I’d be glad to speak with any group who’ve been kind enough to invite me,” said Robinson.

Though it was tough writing at times, Robinson’s already got another couple of book ideas lined up.

The first is about a bank robbery and murder that occurred in Lenox in 1909, said Robinson.

His granddad plays a bit part in the story, having run into the killer.

“It’s not a mystery, but it’s a very interesting story,” said Robinson.

The book after that is another memoir of sorts.

It follows his youth, growing up in Lenox as a young boy in rural America.

He wants to interweave his own story with the story of Lenox’s black community.

“It’ll be the view of segregated, rural, Lenox, Georgia in the 1950s, from a white standpoint and a black standpoint,” said Robinson.

“Remembering Vietnam: A Veteran’s Story” is available in print and ebook at https://www.amazon.com/Remembering-Vietnam-Veterans-Warren-Robinson/dp/1546326901.

Production is underway on an audio version of the book as well.

Robinson will be discussing his memoir at the Lenox Civic Center in Lenox on July 30, 3-5 p.m.