“A Piece of My Heart”, a play based off of six women who experienced life during the Vietnam war, was held at the Campus Theatre on Saturday, Nov. 12.

The story is mainly focused on five nurses and a singer, which is hired to entertain the soldiers, who traveled to Vietnam and shared their experiences together all throughout their stay in Vietnam.

While the audience members waited for the show to begin, each saw a placard in the seat in front of them with a name and a title as they were seated.

It wasn’t until the director, Matthew Singleton, came out and explained that each seat was saved and named “in honor for each soldier who fought in the Vietnam war who was from the Los Angeles areas” such as Gardena, Hawthorne, etc.

The play began with the silhouette of five soldiers marching up to the center of the stage with the American flag waving behind them. The spotlight then focused on six women, including a country singer, and each began to talk about how they felt about traveling to Vietnam.

Some nurses spoke about their exposure to overwhelming and first time experiences.

“I liked the part where [one of the nurses] spoke about it being her first experience giving a penicillin shot,” Karen Santos, 27, business major said. “It felt real, she and the soldier looked pretty scared.”

As the story developed, the scenes began to show more warlike action. The red and white strobe lights began to go off which represented blood and gunfire and the injured troops began to need more medical attention.

“I feel like this makes us think more about what our troops go through,” Jason Lee, 17, undecided major, said.

Although many scenes where focused on the war itself, a couple scenes contained live “cheery” music and other scenes made almost the entire audience laugh out loud.

“The dancing scene, where all of them were dancing together was hilarious. The guy all the way in the corner (a soldier) had his back facing us and we could see everything,” Alex Aleman, 20, biology major said.

Some characters even spoke about the sexist remarks made to them because they were being too “womanly” by wearing a ribbon and wearing perfume; even a story of a rape.

Toward the end, the nurses and the remaining soldiers gathered together as they sang “Amazing Grace” in remembrance of the fallen troops who never made it back to their homes.