Walter ‘Butch’ Maki
About the Best-Selling Author
Walter "Butch" Maki has achieved the American dream - from decorated war veteran to successful businessman to senior presidential campaign advisor and beyond. Yet beneath this tale of success lies a darker truth of the honor and trauma of serving his beloved country. With his best-selling debut novel, Bikini Beach, Butch offers a glimpse of the special forces of love, understanding, and friendship that have helped him battle the unseen wounds of war.
The American Dream
At first blush, Walter “Butch” Maki, seems like a typical American success story with many turns in his life, from a decorated war veteran, turned blue-collar worker, turned political mastermind, turned entrepreneurial success story, and now an award-winning, best-selling author. But for this New Hampshire farm boy who sees all this as “just doing his job,” there was a dark side.
The honor and trauma that came from serving with the 170th Assault Helicopter Company in Pleiku, Vietnam, assigned to support the Fourth Infantry Division and the U.S. Special Forces.
For Butch, those minutes of sporadic, intense, and instantly terrifying warfighting followed by the ensuing hours of boredom in which to dwell on it all became a toxic mix that left a deep gash in his psyche.
His Army Commendation Medal, Purple Heart, Bronze Star, and numerous Air Medals, including one with a “V” for valor, only tell the outside story of the war. Inside, like many vets, the trauma from the war invaded his life, initially causing rage and depression, and relentless panic attacks when he returned.
From a Senior Advisor on a U.S. presidential campaign to building businesses and raising a family, Butch has won many battles since then to overcome the experiences that haunted him and continue his service to his country.
In his debut best-selling novel, Bikini Beach, love, understanding, and friendship are the special forces that get his main character, Mack, through the war and civilian life that followed it.
It is to those who served and their families that Bikini Beach is offered as a hand on the shoulder and a knowing smile.
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