Scotch Literature Festival 2007 > Barry
Barry Heard
Barry Heard was conscripted in Australia's first national service ballot, and served in Vietnam as an infantryman and radio operator. After completing his national service he returned home, where he found himself unable to settle down. He had ten different jobs in his first ten years back, worked as a teacher for a further ten years, and then held several mid-managerial posts before succumbing to a devastating breakdown due to severe post-traumatic stress disorder.
Since recovering, Barry Heard has decided to concentrate on his writing. Well Done, Those Men is his first book. He lives with his family in rural Victoria.
Well done, those men (Year 9 Year 10 Year 11 & 12)
Barry Heard draws on his own experiences as a young conscript, along with those of his comrades, to look back at life before, during and after the Vietnam War. Barry will attempt to make sense of what Vietnam did to the lives of the soldiers who fought there, detailing the rigours of their military training, the horror of the war they fought, and what happened to them when they returned home to Australia.
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