Customer Reviews

Hero Mama: A Daughter Remembers the Father She Lost in Vietnam--and the Mother Who Held Her Family Together

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Having picked up a copy of Hero Mama in the Borders' Store at Dulles Airport in DC,the cashier asked me why would I want to read something about an unpopular event such as Vietnam. I shared with her my story having just been to the "Wall" to see my Dad's name "James C. Mitchell Jr. KIA 01/08/1970" and the significance of "Our Story". The story of sons and daughters who lost their Dad's in Vietnam. As I began to read on the plane-I laughed, cried, and said several "OH MY GOD!!'s" This is my life, or at least a greater part of it in print. Several people on the plane notice how intense my facial expressions were while reading the book. I literally could not put the book down. The author captures many of the raw and truthful emotions that children of the Vietnam War have felt and currently feel. These are the emotions of joy, sadness, fear, lonliness, and pride as we have learned to face our lives with the scars of a Nation that did not welcome our fathers home, a Nation that did not understand how to deals with War Orphans and a generation of grieving wives and children, and a Nation that is just now acknowledging the sacrifices of that generation as we begin to heal. It is just now that we see the needs of the next generation of Hero Mamas. Thank you Karen for sharing your story with all of us Sons and Daughters of the Vietnam War. You make us and our Dads very proud. This review is writen by Susan Mitchell Mattera, the proud daughter of James C. Mitchell Jr US Navy who served in Vietnam and was killed in action 01/08/1970.

"Hero Mama" is a raw-edged look at the other victims of war: families.

It is a bluntly honest book. It is an unmistakably "southern" book. Above all, it is a thought-provoking book that will help those of us on the outside understand what happens once the flag has been folded and handed to the widow.

Zacharias is that rare writer who is immensely gifted, and yet doesn't let herself get in the way of the story.

"Hero Mama" is a superb book about reconciliation, resiliency and, ultimately, triumph. It is sometimes humorous, sometimes heartbreaking, always compelling.

As the author of a book about another hero involving war ("American Nightingale," about the first nurse to die after the landings at Normandy), I've read hundreds of books about war. This is among the two or three best.

Karen Spears Zacharias has honored both her killed-in-action Vietnam Veteran father and her war-widow mother immensely by telling their story, a rare ability these days. This is not a syrupy, sugar-coated account. Rather, it is almost a tell-all. But by sharing her raw, emotion-filled story, she has enabled us to peak into the process of grief itself. We are allowed to look inside the casket at the body with her. We are allowed to feel her shock, dismay, and loneliness. We are allowed into her family circle. And we are taught to care. We are all benefited by her candor and would be wise to observe what happens in families who lose a loved one suddenly, especially in the line of duty. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has loved and lost; for those still reeling from the Vietnam War; for those afraid of losing now; and for healers of various disciplines who might need to know more about how grief is manifested and how support can be given. The Vietnam War is a difficult and often avoided subject. We owe it to Vietnam Veterans and surviving families to listen to their stories and hear what they have learned. We also owe it to those who have just experienced the loss of a loved one in combat more recently to attempt to apply the lessons learned post-Vietnam War to here and now. Karen gives us the prescription to do just that.

I am huge fan of Southern Fiction Writers (P.Conroy,A.R.Siddons,R.Wells.
I am also the only daughter of
S/Sgt Lewis Walton (SF:Army:MIA-1971). With my baby brother serving in Iraq, I was both hesitant and curious about this book.In my estimation, Karen's account was personal and inspirational.More importantly it sheds light on what life was like for "us kids". Her story should be shared with many and be required reading for ALL high school AND College Classes which focus on Vietnam. Vietnam affected more than just the brave soldiers serving- their parents, children and grandchildren. Kind of makes you think about Aft. and Iraq. A definite must read!
Jacke Walton

After hearing the author on NPR, a friend suggested I read this book. I doubt I would have ever picked it up on my own- I felt like I'd seen all the Vietnam movies and I was not affected by the war. However,I can honestly say this is one of the best books I have ever read. I have a new perspective on not only Vietnam but how I feel for the soldiers in Iraq now. It's not only about the consequences of war- it's about family, grief, perserverence and forgiveness. It's one of those books you think about for days and wish you had more of it to read.

Very informative book. Not only does it help to understand the perspective of being a child of a KIA (Gold Star), but also, other Gold Star family members, since it focuses on all their lives. Furthermore, it is telling a life story, with plot, so it's not just "this is how a person would feel" from a clinical perspective, but rather, how it really is.

As a Vietnam Vet with a couple tours in country I have tried to read all sides of the war and this is the first account I have seen from this side or perspective. For that reason it is an outstanding book and a rewarding perspective from what I am sure was a terrible experience. So my hat goes off to Karen for what she has endured and for putting it in words for us. In the end however I really struggled with what it was trying to say and perhaps that is the message that the tragedy of Vietnam is in trying to make sense of it from what appears to be most angles including this one. It is heartfelt certainly but didnt leave me where I thought it might ...

As a creative nonfiction student, I have read a number of memoirs and have found few to be as honest in its search for truth as Karen Spears Zacharias' "After the Flag has been Folded." Zacharias is a natural storyteller. Her style captivates the reader as she attempts to unravel the events of her life and to understand how the tragedy of losing her father to war impacted her family. The reader is left laughing one minute and crying the next as she glimpses into Zacharias' journey from loss to redemption. This book is a must read, especially for students of creative nonfiction. Its honesty is a refreshing contrast to the many poorly written memoirs that sensationalize on lifes hearbreaks and struggles.

Throughout the pages of this book, Karen shares her life with all of us whether we be widows, children, or like myself grandchildren of war. Living a life of unanswered questions and digging for those answers through her own bravery, Karen recounts the cherished nine years of her life she spent with her father as well as the 30 fatherless years that lied ahead beginning on July 24, 1966. She recalls the struggles of childhood and the successes that her mother set out to achieve to raise three children on her own without choice.

Wanting answers myself to questions about a grandfather I never knew, I seized every moment of this book with overwhelming emotion. I had tears of sadness, tears of happiness and continue tears of pride for my own "Hero Grandma" who raised seven of her own children due to the loss of her husband in VN in April 1966.

"Hero Mama" will be a book you will be unable to put down once you open and read that first page. I know that you will have a different view of war after completing such an emotional journey with Karen. I am one of many who am thankful to Karen, for sharing her family's gallant journey of life with all of us. Her family remains in my heart.

I first picked up Karen Spears Zacharias' memoir because her life's story appeared similar to mine. We both lost our fathers in the Vietnam War; she was nine when her daddy fell in my native country and I was ten when I was separated from mine.

I learned much more beyond that connection.

Behind many of the 58,235 names on the Vietnam Wall in Washington, DC, are wives, daughters, and sons who struggled to deal with unresolved losses that linger for many years. For Zacharias, it took nearly forty years to make sense of it all. She pays tribute to her parents and her siblings with this moving memoir. It is also a stark reminder of the toll of war on surviving family members. Its publication amid the current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq provides a preview of the difficulties that lay ahead for the families of those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty.

The cover jacket of Hero Mama contains a nostalgic color family photo of Mama Shelby, older brother Frankie, younger sister Linda and nine-year-old Karen. Her daddy, Army Staff Sergeant David P. Spears, is the sole figure in black and white, smiling but contrasting from the rest of the Spears family. On July 24, 1966, that smile vanished in the Ia Drang Valley a little more than a year after American combat troops landed in Vietnam. In a trailer home tract in Tennessee, Zacharias' mama received the news from a uniformed soldier pulling up in a jeep clutching a telegram bearing the bad news. Zacharias cried and screamed; Frankie punched the trailer with his fists while screaming, "Those Charlies killed my Daddy!" Years later Zacharias wrote of her father's death: "I think that's what losing Daddy did to us. With him gone, we were headless. It was if somebody came into our home with a machete and in one swift slice decapitated our entire family."

Conflicting accounts surrounding Spears' death immediately surfaced; it was reported that he had died from an accident resulting from the explosion of an artillery round from his 105 mm tube. Troubles soon crept into Zacharias' family as her mama, a tenth-grade dropout, fell for other men while her children lacked the family bonding without their father. Teenage problems with drugs, pregnancy, and anger soon followed the Spears children. Miraculously their mama found the strength to return to school and worked as a prison nurse for many years. Zacharias' poignant recollections revealed a turbulent time for her family, pained by the loss of her daddy but persevered through the will of her mama.

After nearly 300 pages, Zacharias accelerated the narrative from the period of 1975 through her visit to Vietnam in 2003. Following a move from a college in Georgia to Oregon, she married and had four children. On the tenth anniversary of the fall of Saigon, she penned her first piece about Vietnam in a letter that was published by People. Ten years later, while in graduate school and writing her first book, she began her journey that would take her back to her daddy's battleground. While in Vietnam, she put together the pieces of her daddy's death through official government letters and conversations with those who served in his unit. She also met Vietnamese from the north and south and those who also lost their fathers in the protracted and divisive war.

But it would be a statue in Da Nang in central Vietnam where Zacharias would find the motivation for the title of Hero Mama. So ends her search for honor, for peace and for the humanity in the greatest loss in her life, resulting in this important and triumphant work of literature, a must read for every American in another time of war.

On a recent trip to Washington, DC, I revisited the Vietnam Wall. On the black granite I found David P. Spears engraved on panel 9E, line 71. I had come to pay my respect to Spears for his service in an honorable cause during a difficult time. I now know of his family through Hero Mama. They went through difficult pain but they moved on; they are true survivors and not victims. Yet they probably figured Staff Sergeant Spears would have expected nothing less.