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Looking for a Hero: Staff Sergeant Joe Ronnie Hooper and the Vietnam War. By Peter Maslowski and Don Winslow. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004. ISBN 0-8032-3244-6. Photographs. Appendix. Notes. Bibliographic essay. Index. Pp. 618. $29.95.
Biographical studies have deepened our understanding of the Vietnam War, exploring the ways in which Americans and Vietnamese approached the conflict and providing a window into both the high-level deliberations of political and military leaders and the low-level efforts of those in the field to carry out their decisions. Looking for a Hero is a part of this genre, the story of Joe Ronnie Hooper, a Medal of Honor winner and one of the most decorated soldiers of the Vietnam War, who identified with the war and found fulfillment in his two tours of duty there.
For students of the Vietnam war, Hooper is a familiar figure, one of those "troubled, hard-drinking career soldiers who fought so bravely and could not come to terms with peace" (p. 494). A restless, unstable young man from a poor, working-class family, Hooper dropped out of high...