On Monday, November 6, at 7:00 p.m., the New Jersey Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial Foundation will host a lecture by author Laura Palmer about her book, Shrapnel in the Heart: Letters and Remembrances from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, at the Vietnam Era Educational Center in Holmdel.

Laura Palmer has worked as a journalist in Saigon, Paris, Washington, D.C., New York, and Los Angeles. She left for Vietnam after graduating from college in 1972 to cover the war for ABC and NBC radio news and to write for Time and Rolling Stone magazines. She was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for her syndicated column, "Welcome Home," about coming to terms with the Vietnam War. She has written three non-fiction books and has written and produced news stories for NBC, CBS, and ABC News, most recently for "Nightline."

For Shrapnel in the Heart, Laura Palmer located people who left letters and poems at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., and told their stories of the war from the perspective of being the family and friends of the soldiers who died in Vietnam. In her introduction, the author writes, "I don’t know if their deaths were a waste, but I know most assuredly that their lives were not. They mattered passionately to the people who loved them, and that has never changed. … Sadly, it is not a love that can stop war, but it is one that defeats death." 

Lecture attendees are asked to RSVP prior to the event to (732) 335-0033. A donation of $5.00 per person is suggested. The Vietnam Era Educational Center is located adjacent to the New Jersey Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial off the Garden State Parkway exit 116. The Educational Center is regularly open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 AM – 4 PM. Regular admission is free for veterans and active-duty military personnel. Regular adult admission is $4.00; student and senior citizen admission is $2.00, and children under 10 are admitted free.

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