Hearts

About the Book

‘Hearts’ is a two-year adventure that takes place during the middle years of the Vietnam War, 1969 and 1970. From Draft Notice to Discharge, this book leads the reader on a journey from the Army Induction process to Basic Training and Advanced Infantry Training, then to Non-Commissioned Officer’s School, On-The-Job Training, and Vietnam. Through the good and the bad, the funny and the sad, you’ll sense love and hate, joy and pain. You’ll know the inner despair of young men as they unwittingly transform into young soldiers, and you’ll laugh at their artful acts of defiance. You’ll struggle with them as their idealistic notion of proudly serving their country pales to the reality that they are merely political pawns forced to participate in a senseless war. You’ll feel the helplessness of being bound by oath to follow orders, to accept peril and to commit to a war that has already been lost, and in which your only resolve will be to survive. You’ll learn what it is to sleep with ticks, leeches, and scorpions, and you’ll eat with ants and rats. You’ll share the torment of helicopter insertions into jungle landing zones, and you’ll join in the revelry of extraction while dangling in the doorways of the airborne roller coasters. You’ll endure long jungle nights in torrential monsoon rain and be thankful that it’s helping to ward off the mosquitoes. You’ll experience the silence and anxiety of sitting in ambush. You’ll tense at the sound of chattering voices, glimpse movement through thick jungle, and realize the explosiveness of combat. You’ll sense the boredom, the exhaustion, the fear, the uncertainty, the hopelessness, and the loneliness, and yet, you’ll feel invincible and brave—a recipe for the adrenalin-induced state of insanity in which the combat soldier exists.

About the Author

H. E. Shockley was a sixteen year old high school sophomore when the first American troops deployed to Vietnam in 1965. Being a typical self-centered teenager, to him freedom meant having a driverÌ¢*‰ã¢s license, and his world revolved around cars, girls, and little else. Things like world affairs, conflicts, and wars were solely adult concerns that were of little importance to a high school football player who believed that anything bad happening in the world would be resolved by the time he ventured forth after high school. However, by his senior year and eighteenth birthday, the Vietnam conflict had escalated into a war, and with a low draft number and no money or desire for college he found himself with no other option than to volunteer for the draft. He chose Infantry and VietnamÌ¢*‰**a choice, that would affect him forever. After his discharge in 1970, he attended and dropped out of various colleges, and he worked at numerous mundane construction jobs. A decade later, he received a BFA Degree from Kansas State University, which he immediately rejected to pursue a career in Law Enforcement. He eventually dropped out of that, also. In 2003, the author was diagnosed with chronic PTSD by the Veterans Administration. Finally, he and his wife, Kathy, can better understand why the Vietnam War will never end for them. Currently, they live near a small secluded lake in Kansas, and they have a son named Travis.