Valley of The Purple Hearts

Valley of The Purple Hearts

The 101st Airborne West of Hue after The 1968 Tet Offensive

The story of an infantry squad in Vietnam.

When eighteen-year-old Buck Marino first meets Rolley Zwyrkowski, he little realizes the young sergeant and their next year together in Vietnam will change his life forever. The months following the 1968 Tet Offensive and the battles of the 101st Airborne between Hue and Phu Bai, and westward into the A Shau Valley, provide the backdrop for a story about boys becoming men in a paradoxical war. And when he meets Army nurse Janie Jorgensen, Buck believes he has found the love of his life only to crash into the reality that the war has left his heart and soul lost in a futureless void.

 

Winner of the 2017 Best Indie Book Award for Mainstream Literary Fiction, Valley of The Purple Hearts follows the men of Second Squad through the shadowy jungles and mountains of I-Corps as they fight main force Viet Cong and NVA regulars. With constant enemy contact, booby-traps, sniper fire, and all-out firefights, Buck and his buddies follow their squad leader, Rolley, who puts the lives of his men first. As Rolley faces the young and inept Lieutenant Mallon, Buck realizes his squad leader is becoming jaded and has lost his sense of humor. When the young sergeant sacrifices his safety for that of his men, Buck must step up to face Mallon in the heat of battle, and try to save his friend. 

BIB award

Valley of the Purple Hearts Purchase Options

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You may also enjoy my other books below:

Melody Hill: A Vietnam War Novel

Gomorrah Principle: A Vietnam War Sniper Story

Raeford’s MVP: Military Fiction with a Love Story

Tallahatchie: Southern Fiction and Dark Comedy

Rawlings, No Longer Young: A Western Historical Fiction Novel

Recent Posts

November 2023 Blog/Newsletter

Hello Faithful Reader,

So, in the interest of humor, progressive love, and activism, I am joining the disenfranchised at great institutions such as MIT, Yale, Harvard, etc. and declaring my pronouns. (I didn’t say they were disenfranchised of money, just some other things.) But not to worry, if you do not demand, claim, or otherwise declare your pronouns, you mustn’t be bothered with mine, ‘cause frankly I’ll answer to almost anything. And those of you who know me and my writings, will likely continue calling me by whatever pronoun/appellation you choose anyway. As most of you know, I readily answer to “hey you, Rick, Dad, Dee, asshole, supper’s ready,” and too many others to list.

However!  For those of you who demand exclusive pronoun references, I must from this day forward reciprocate with my own demands and insist you use my pronouns of choice as well. These are “Master and Commander.” Yep, it’s that easy. Pretty simple, right? Again, not to worry. You’ll grow accustomed to it, but as a result, should you experience hot flashes, indigestion, queasiness, headache, fear of goats, fallen arches, out of body experiences, or other unexpected reactions, you may scurry to your nearest safe place and request milk and cookies from the college professor of your choice.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…the boss (my wife) and I just returned from an extended weekend in the Arkansas Ozarks at the Mountain View Blue Grass Festival. We met some wonderful people there and enjoyed some great mountain music. We were the guests of Chris Smith at his Wildflower Bed and Breakfast, and I am now officially overweight. That guy can cook!

Updates on the writing world: I am almost finished with the first draft of Specter of Betrayal, Book II of The Ghost, and currently I’m working with someone translating one of my first books The Gomorrah Principle into German. I’ve done relatively well in Great Britian and figured I’d test the non-English speaking European market. We will see.

I need a couple Beta-readers. I’ll post more on that in a couple weeks on the December blog.

Also, in the interest of finding more readers, I will be doing a 5-day price reduction sale of one of my twelve Kindle books on Amazon. Again, there will be more on that in the blog post next month.

As always, I want to remind you to register on the website, so you won’t miss these updates. I send them out once a month.

Best Wishes and Happy Thanksgiving.

Rick DeStefanis

www.rickdestefanis.com

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