Down South & Other Places is a nonfiction work by Eric Koplin. He tells a tale of being a support troop (heavy-equipment operator) in Vietnam in 1969. He was an enlisted man, a lance corporal (E3) in the United States Marine Corps. He moves around southern I Corps, providing support to infantry units. His stories are about the craziness of that era and place. He then takes us home to Chicago, Illinois, and the western suburbs of that great city. He tells us stories of how a nineteen-year-old veteran was treated in 1970. He tells us a bit of how he adjusted, and he touches on his posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression, which he deals with to this day.

He tells of friends, people in general, and veterans hospitals and their staff. The book sums up the uselessness of that war and the awful treatment our returning veterans endured at the hands of their fellow Americans.