Honorable Returns
Linda Henman flawlessly captures the soul of the Vietnam POW with unforgettable, compassionate, and laugh-out-loud humor as she combines historical fiction with an against-all-odds love story. Amidst the backdrop of Vietnam's POW experience, the story weaves fact and fiction to depict the emotional, political, and military complexities that define their intertwined lives and their struggle for survival, love, and honor.
About Linda Henman
For more than 40, years senior leaders in family-owned businesses, mid-sized firms, very large companies, and military organizations have relied on Dr. Linda Henman to help them make decisions they have to get right because they simply can’t afford to get them wrong.
Linda started her consulting career with the United States Air Force and continued her association with the military when she worked on her doctoral dissertation at the Robert E. Mitchell POW Center at Pensacola Naval Air Station, where she first studied decision-making. Her original research on 138 American POWs who had survived five or more years of brutal imprisonment uncovered pivotal decisions the POWs made to stay resilient—decision, about their beliefs, identity, and life’s purpose. Her findings have guided her work with executives ever since.
Prior to becoming a full-time consultant 24 years ago, Linda taught English, writing, communication, business, and psychology at the high school, undergraduate, and graduate levels. Her doctoral dissertation, The Vietnam POW Experience: Links between Communication and Resilience, is available at henmanperformancegroup.com. Linda lives in St. Louis, MO.
Honorable Returns
Synopsis:
Jack Lynch is living his dream as an Air Force fighter pilot. But after he’s shot down over North Vietnam, he gets a ticket to the Hanoi Hilton. With no way to know whether he’s presumed dead or just MIA, he feels desperate to return to his fiancé, Bridget, before she gives up hope
Honorable Returns combines fact and fiction to present an accurate account of the Vietnam POW experience. Spanning three decades, the story begins with two West Point graduates, Bob Lynch and Rex Brown, and the intersecting lives of their children, Jack and Bridget. The paths of fictional and real characters produce complex interrelationships, paths that showcase the emotional, political, and military circumstances that often find Jack and Bridget in a blizzard of tragedy, wit, and wisecracks.
Linda’s Writing Process
Research. Thought Process. Writing.
The Back Story
I bear the moniker. We call ourselves “brats,” but we don’t like other people to use the term. We came from a small town spread all over the world—a city
The Research That Led to a Novel
Years before I started my Ph.D. in psychology, I found myself drawn to stories of resilience—stories of people who
Decisions that Led to Resilience
In my interviews with the VPOWs, I discovered that each man had to decide to live, to bounce back, and to return with
