From Hero To Zero: War Stories, Blunders, and Lessons from Three Generations in Uniform

"Lieutenant Colonel Riley has the unique ability to articulate even the most serious and somber story in a humorous, witty way — rare, relatable, and laugh-out-loud funny." — Verified Reviewer

For fans of Jarhead, Chickenhawk and Kaboom — and anyone who has ever led people, served their country, or wants to know what it is like to serve in the military. The Army will pin a medal on your chest one day and make you the punchline of a barracks story the next. Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) Paul Riley has been both a hero and a zero.

You don't need a service record to love this book.Told in short, standalone chapters spanning Vietnam, Desert Storm, and Iraq, it's a book you can read cover to cover or pick up for ten minutes at a time — which is exactly what military spouses, adult kids of veterans, and civilian readers have found themselves doing.

From Hero to Zero: War Stories, Blunders, and Lessons from Three Generations in Uniform is what military service looks like when no one's polishing the official report. Like when Riley's father — assigned as a Vietnam psyops officer with zero psyops training — projected a glowing supernatural phoenix onto clouds over enemy territory to trigger mass surrenders. It worked perfectly. Friendly South Vietnamese troops started surrendering too, and the mission had to be scrapped. Or the night of the second-largest tank battle in US history, when seventy-two sleepless hours pushed Riley to scream the location of a bubblegum-pink elephant into his vehicle intercom — in the middle of the Iraqi desert — before his brain caught up with his mouth.

Funny, yes. But underneath every blunder is a leadership lesson earned the hard way — and the one truth no officer's manual will tell you: competence is situational, but character is permanent.

Going from hero to zero isn't failure. It's the raw material of every story worth telling.

What readers are saying:
"A rare book that isn't about Special Ops, but about everyday soldiers doing what their country asked." — Amazon Reader
"Honest, unpolished, and focused on the lessons that come from real consequences rather than glorified outcomes." — Amazon Reader
"It doesn't just tell what happened as a history lesson — it tells things from a human perspective, making it relatable for military families." — Amazon Reader