The Sum of All the Pieces: Surviving Life's Challenges and Bad Decisions By: Paul Bradford In , Paul Bradford tells about several life-altering events and how he reckons with them. Starting with his early youth in the cotton fields in Arkansas, he details his true-life adventures about his abusive childhood, his divorce after a forty-three year marriage, his sexual orientation confusion, his heinous crime, his five years in prison, and his twelve months in the Vietnam War. is an often difficult but always honest portrayal of one man's challenges. About the Author Paul Bradford was nine years old when his mother died. After his father abandoned him, he lived in five foster homes. He began his schooling in the fourth grade. He fought in the Vietnam War and was awarded a Bronze Star for Valor and received a Purple Heart for his battlefield wounds. He is seventy-two years young and now retired.