Mike Farris
Paul Heckmann (aka Assassin) and I are collaborating on a book project that combines Paul's inspirational personal story with his search, later in life, for his birth family. That search revealed a hero half-brother named John Kearns that he never knew, who had been killed in Laos in 1972 as part of the CIA's paramilitary operations in that country during the Vietnam Warthe so-called "secret war." John's heroism is memorialized as a recipient of the CIA's Intelligence Star, depicted on the CIA's Memorial Wall at its headquarters.
TCU Press will be publishing the book, titled "Searching for Lone Star: A Tale of Two Brothers." This will be my 20th bookmight be a good round number to stop on.
Here is how we pitched "Searching for Lone Star" to TCU Press:
In 2000, CIA director George J. Tenet revealed the identities of some of those represented by nameless stars on the CIA's Memorial Wall. Among those was a Texan named John W. Kearns, who initially attended Texas Christian University (where his father was the ROTC instructor) and graduated from North Texas State University with a degree in Far East Studies. John served as a special operations officer in the CIA's paramilitary operation in Laos during the Vietnam War, the so-called "secret war," where he was killed in action in 1972. John, whose call sign was, fittingly, "Lone Star," was posthumously awarded the CIA Intelligence Star "in recognition of his courageous performance under hazardous conditions."
For years, John's story stayed pretty well unknown, shrouded in secrecy by classified government documents, and only mentioned in passing in books such as "The Book of Honor: The Secret Lives and Deaths of CIA Operatives" by Ted Gup and "Top Secret Missions Performed by Elite Commo & Intel Specialists" by John E. Malone.
Until now.
In "Searching for Lone Star: A Tale of Two Brothers," Paul Heckmann, with the assistance of Mike Farris, tells his own personal story of struggles with addiction that, later in life, led him to search for his biological familyand to discover a hero half-brother he had never known: John W. Kearns. While digging deeper into John's story of heroism, he struggled with new, and seemingly insurmountable, difficulties of his own: Tardive Dyskinesia and a broken back.
"Searching for Lone Star" tells the story of two brothers, neither of whom knew about the other until long after the heroic death of the older that inspired the younger to overcome his own adversity. It is a story of sacrifice and inspiration, of love and loss, and, ultimately, of family
Paul Heckmann (aka Assassin) and I are collaborating on a book project that combines Paul's inspirational personal story with his search, later in life, for his birth family. That search revealed a hero half-brother named John Kearns that he never knew, who had been killed in Laos in 1972 as part of the CIA's paramilitary operations in that country during the Vietnam Warthe so-called "secret war." John's heroism is memorialized as a recipient of the CIA's Intelligence Star, depicted on the CIA's Memorial Wall at its headquarters.
TCU Press will be publishing the book, titled "Searching for Lone Star: A Tale of Two Brothers." This will be my 20th bookmight be a good round number to stop on.
Here is how we pitched "Searching for Lone Star" to TCU Press:
In 2000, CIA director George J. Tenet revealed the identities of some of those represented by nameless stars on the CIA's Memorial Wall. Among those was a Texan named John W. Kearns, who initially attended Texas Christian University (where his father was the ROTC instructor) and graduated from North Texas State University with a degree in Far East Studies. John served as a special operations officer in the CIA's paramilitary operation in Laos during the Vietnam War, the so-called "secret war," where he was killed in action in 1972. John, whose call sign was, fittingly, "Lone Star," was posthumously awarded the CIA Intelligence Star "in recognition of his courageous performance under hazardous conditions."
For years, John's story stayed pretty well unknown, shrouded in secrecy by classified government documents, and only mentioned in passing in books such as "The Book of Honor: The Secret Lives and Deaths of CIA Operatives" by Ted Gup and "Top Secret Missions Performed by Elite Commo & Intel Specialists" by John E. Malone.
Until now.
In "Searching for Lone Star: A Tale of Two Brothers," Paul Heckmann, with the assistance of Mike Farris, tells his own personal story of struggles with addiction that, later in life, led him to search for his biological familyand to discover a hero half-brother he had never known: John W. Kearns. While digging deeper into John's story of heroism, he struggled with new, and seemingly insurmountable, difficulties of his own: Tardive Dyskinesia and a broken back.
"Searching for Lone Star" tells the story of two brothers, neither of whom knew about the other until long after the heroic death of the older that inspired the younger to overcome his own adversity. It is a story of sacrifice and inspiration, of love and loss, and, ultimately, of family
Searching for Lone Star: A Tale of Two Brothers
https://tcupress.tcu.edu/9780875659862/
https://tcupress.tcu.edu/9780875659862/
