Looking for a Hero: Staff Sergeant Joe Ronnie Hooper and the Vietnam War [Hardcover]

Peter Maslowski (Author), Don Winslow (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 2005

Widely acclaimed as the Vietnam War's most highly decorated soldier, Joe Ronnie Hooper in many ways serves as a symbol for that conflict. His troubled, tempestuous life paralleled the upheavals in American society during the 1960s and 1970s, and his desperate quest to prove his manhood was uncomfortably akin to the macho image projected by three successive presidents in their "tough" policy in Southeast Asia. Looking for a Hero extracts the real Joe Hooper from the welter of lies and myths that swirl around his story; in doing so, the book uncovers not only the complicated truth about an American hero but also the story of how Hooper's war was lost in Vietnam, not at home.

Extensive interviews with friends, fellow soldiers, and family members reveal Hooper as a complex, gifted, and disturbed man. They also expose the flaws in his most famous and treasured accomplishment: earning the Medal of Honor. In the distortions, half-truths, and outright lies that mar Hooper's medal of honor file, authors Peter Maslowski and Don Winslow find a painful reflection of the army's inability to be honest with itself and the American public, with all the dire consequences that this dishonesty ultimately entailed. In the inextricably linked stories of Hooper and the Vietnam War, the nature of that deceit, and of America's defeat, becomes clear.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

A massive biography presents the eventful, too-short, tragic life of Staff Sergeant Joe Ronnie Hooper, the most decorated soldier of the Vietnam War. Hooper began as the classic working-class boy, athletic (not to say with a chip on his shoulder), and with uncertain prospects, who joins the army. He went to Vietnam in the 101st Airborne and appears to have been a natural infantryman (Maslowski and Winslow cite Audie Murphy in comparison), effective individually and as a leader in a variety of combat situations. Whether he actually did everything he was supposed to have done in the way the army said he did is controversial, and the authors expend a great many pages evaluating all the controversies, never giving the army much credit but also never attacking Hooper. Hooper's postwar life was marred by PTSD and alcoholism; he eventually died of alcohol-related causes and is buried in Arlington Cemetery. Maslowski and Winslow's extreme thoroughness offsets their antimilitary bias and makes their work a more than respectable contribution to the Vietnam War literature. Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

"Looking For a Hero is an extraordinary feat of biographical reconstruction, as well as a powerful, poignant account of a nation at war. The tale of Joe Hooper''s turbulent life and sad death transcends the story of America''s most decorated Vietnam veteran to become a meditation about heroism, manhood, and the true cost of combat."—Rick Atkinson, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of An Army at Dawn

(Rick Atkinson )

"I was totally caught up in the story; reading it is like watching a train wreck in slow motion. I wish I had written this book. It is daring and it is original."—Roger J. Spiller, George C. Marshall Professor of Military History at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College

(Roger J. Spiller )

"Peter Maslowski and Don Winslow''s meditation on heroism and the Vietnam experience is a truly original book. Its protagonist is not one of the great and good, but a humble ''grunt.'' . . . Looking for a Hero has a highly sophisticated structure that is developed with great skill. Maslowski and Winslow bind onto Hooper''s modest life a history of the Vietnam era that assumes the form of a moral tale and operates at a number of levels."—Times Literary Supplement

(Times Literary Supplement )

“A stinging indictment of the government’s treatment of veterans of our most recent wars.”—Vietnam Veterans of America

(Vietnam Veterans of America )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 618 pages
• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press (February 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803232446
• ISBN-13: 978-0803232440
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 2.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #817,703 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars From an Original Delta Raider, February 26, 2006

By 

Al Mount "Original Delta Raider" (Antonia, Mo.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Looking for a Hero: Staff Sergeant Joe Ronnie Hooper and the Vietnam War (Hardcover)

If you only read the first three pages of the prologue,

you'll recognize my name.

It's hard to read the negative stuff about a brother in arms,

a friend and about a war you thought at the time,

was worth fighting and dying for.

I have so much respect for Capt. McMenamy, Capt. Hogan and

Platoon Sgt. Parker,

that to this day, at a reunion, it is hard not to refer to them by their rank rather than by

"Wayne, Cleo & George".

The inspiring story of " Joe Hooper & the Delta Raiders" is

well documented in the book, but then I'm prejudiced.

If you want a history lesson about the Vietnam war without any

sugar coating, I would recommend this book.

If you want a textbook case of how alcohol can affect a great

man, I would also recommend this book.

I will go to my grave with the belief that SSgt. Sims

threw himself on that grenade to save his men.

The Professor seems to write a bit skeptically about PTSD,

for those that feel likewise I have written a poem.

"If nightmares & dreams could be bottled like wine,

I'd send you a crate,

Vintage Tet 68,

so you could share some of mine"


God Bless Ya, Joe Hooper


Sgt. Al Mount
D Co. 2/501st. Inf.
101st Airborne Div.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing account of a tragic life, June 4, 2005

By 

Daniel Aksamit (Lincoln, NE) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Looking for a Hero: Staff Sergeant Joe Ronnie Hooper and the Vietnam War (Hardcover)

This book is fantastic! It follows the life of Hooper from childhood to his death, but also discusses the Vietnam War and many of its details. The book however does not get bogged down in the details of the war but refers to it in an appropriate amount. The book is a joy to read and reads quite quickly. The life of Hooper is an exciting journey full of highs and lows. His life seems to not get enough credit or recognition as it should or as much as Audie Murphy in WWII or York in WWI. This book gives at least gives you the objective truth about Joe Hooper's life and leaves you to either respect him or dislike him.
I was a student of professor Maslowski at the University of Nebraska and I can tell you first hand that he is a wonderful professor and a very intelligent man. I have heard him lecture about the war and he knows what he is talking about. He understands the difference between judging the war at a broad level and at the platoon level and this book goes to show it. He has total respect for the individual that served but understands the overall flaws in the command and how the individual was effected by them.
I would definitely suggest this book to read, because it is extremely interesting and very historically accurate.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hooper: A man who epitomized the Vietnam conflict., April 26, 2009

By 

S. Luebke (Ventura, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Looking for a Hero: Staff Sergeant Joe Ronnie Hooper and the Vietnam War (Hardcover)

This is a masterfully researched and written account of the Vietnam War era which makes use of the life of Joe Hooper to illustrate that period of time and the conflict. The formidible team of Maslowski and Winslow are a pair of guides who take you through the jungles of Southeast Asia, the tumultuous politics and social upheavals of America during the 60s and early 70s, and the world of the combat soldier. They periodically stop the narrative to explore such crucial topics as the psychology of human bravery and motivation under the extreme duress of combat, the volatility and subjectivity of memory, and the Cold War mindset of the 1960s. Against this backdrop is woven the checkered life of Joe Hooper: a valiant warrior, womanizer, drinker--a man who could never quite adjust to normal human society. For any student of the Vietnam War era, this book should be essential reading. Maslowski examines the policies and motivations of the three American presidents, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon, who pursued the Vietnam debacle; they are each excoriated for the cock-sure macho attitude of their era, their misguided policies, their isolation from and neglect of intelligent voices that could have significantly altered the course of what ultimately became the first big military disaster in American history. Simply put, Maslowski and Winslow--to use a turn of phrase prevalent in the Vietnam Era--tell it like it is.