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

"This tour de force brings home the pain and suffering of soldiers and kin in a way that no other writing has with which I'm familiar. It is simply splendid." -- Walter Cronkite

"A moving, touching, generous book that helps restore humanity to a generation of young Americans who were depersonalized and dehumanized by the political passions of an unpopular war. Read it and weep." -- Ted Koppel

"This is a book that needed to be written. Laura Palmer's sensitivity and understanding...may indeed make Shrapnel in the Heart a classic." -- Jan Scruggs, President, Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund

"A powerful and moving book." -- Cyra McFadden

"There is an extraordinary and deeply moving eloquence in these expressions of grief. This is a book that should be read, but it is slow going. It is difficult to read through a steady mist of tears." -- The Atlantic

Since its dedication in 1982, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial has become the embodiment of America's pain, grief and healing in the wake of our least popular war. Shrapnel in the Heart is an evocative, heart-wrenching collection of over 100 letters left at the memorial--and the stories of the wives, children and buddies who wrote them. Photos.

Laura Palmer