Shrapnel in the Heart: Letters and Remembrances from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial

by Laura Palmer

Book Overview

For the first time, one book gives voice to the haunting, painful, tender, and healing tales of those who lost so much in America's least popular war.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0394759885
• ISBN13: 9780394759883
• Release Date: November 1988
• Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.48 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.2" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

One of the best

Shrapnel In the Heart is a book to be read by everyone no matter what generation they were born in. Shrapnel In The Heart is a book that has letters and rememberances left behind at the Vietnam War Memorial. Some of the letters tell the story about the people behind the letter. The stories are sad, but the courage of the men and women is a true inspiration. The people written about in this book were extrememly young (18, 19, 20) and it seems like they died in vain. But through their letters that were left behind it is easy to see that these young men knew their duty and refused to shirk from it. These men and women are true heroes.

I wish all young people had to read this!

I read this book for a college history course and until now have thought very little about war, military, or world politics. Young people today rarely understand or realize what goes with becoming a soldier. This book gives real images of the devastation war brings from the people who lived through the tragedy of losing their loved ones. It opens our eyes to things we just shouldn't close our eyes on.

Once you start reading, you won't put it down.

I recently bought this book while visting Arlington National Cemetary. It made me undertand more about what was going on here in the United States with families only knowing things about the Vietnam War from what they saw on television. I just could not put this book down for one second. This book even made me cry many times and made me swollow hard tears. We musn't forget those who went over there to fight a war our government tried to win. We should remember them, whether they came home or not.

It broke my heart to think I lived it and was untouched.

I first read Shrapnel in the Heart shortly after its release, having bought it at the Vietnam Vets Memorial. I cannot believe that I was in college, and then newly married when all of Vietnam was going on and I was virtually untouched. I only know of one person "on the wall" and he was a college classmate, commissioned on Graduation day and killed 10 months later. Now I have two sons, graduates of the Naval Academy in Annapolis, one a Marine in Artillery and I cannot imagine war, or their never coming home. One of the dead soldier's stories always haunts me... the boy was several weeks shy of his nineteenth birthday and he hadn't even gotten his wisdom teeth yet. How sad to be his mother, sister, friend, fellow soldier. It is a sad accounting of some of America's darkest days.

So touching it must be read in small doses!

Many books about Viet Nam focus on the military person - - this book not only shares the grief of the wives and mothers left behind, but the feelings of loss felt by brothers and sisters - - it took me months to get through the introduction. The focus of the book is on items left by families at the Viet Nam Memorial in Washington D.C. - - I highly recommend the book, but be prepared: It WILL pull at your heart strings