Twenty years after the fall of Saigon, almost three times as many American veterans of the Vietnam War are currently dying of drug overdose and exposure on the streets of our cities as were killed in Southeast Asia. Ravaged by their experiences fighting in a savage war, Vietnam veterans have to face not only their internal demons but a society that wants only to forget, and a treatment system that either brushes veterans aside or keeps them drugged to oblivion in psychiatric wards.

In 1989 two Vietnam vets without college degrees or a dollar of public money opened up a revolutionary veterans' shelter in downtown Boston that has become a model for similar treatment programs. Run with stringent security and martial discipline, the New England Shelter for Homeless Veterans is a boot camp for broken souls, providing top-to-bottom treatment - drug and alcohol detox, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder therapy, job training, housing placement, and more - for 1,500 veterans a year.

The House of Purple Hearts, by noted young journalist Paul Solotaroff, tells the moving story behind the founding of the New England Shelter and vividly relates the experiences of five men who, with varying degrees of success, made it through the shelter's rigorous program.