Helena Sováková: Colonel of Human Souls
Audiobook
Helena Sováková: Colonel of Human Souls
Colonel Sovakova: The story of a military psychologist
On my command, book in hand! Helena Sováková, an exceptional woman who spent more than twenty years in the Czech army and rose to the rank of colonel, reports. She has served in Iraq and Afghanistan and has been through just about everything: death, fear, bullying in a male environment, but also a lot of military humour. Like when they brought new washing machines to helpless soldiers at a base in Iraq...
As the Army's chief psychologist, she helped dozens of colleagues who suffered nightmares after returning from the war. She cared for families who had lost a son or partner in combat. At the same time, she remains a support to hundreds of people who face all kinds of obstacles in life - at work, in relationships and in raising children. It's a book not only about life in uniform, but also about hope. About the fact that even if we are not well in life, there is a way out.
Warning: During the reading, there is the threat of emotion, goosebumps, laughter and stress relief. This is thanks to the many practical tips contained in the book.
Martin Moravec
When I was a kid, I used to go to math and physics Olympiads, but then something went wrong. I wrote my first article for the district newspaper, got a bill for sixty crowns for it, and at that moment I knew I didn't want to do anything else. At eighteen I went to study in Prague and with my sharp East Bohemian accent was an attraction for many of my journalism classmates. For a long time I didn't understand what they didn't like about sentences like: "I'll have meat and rice." Or: "I'll go to the doctor." At the same time I started an internship in the sports department of the daily MF DNES. "This will be your work," my colleagues handed me blank white A3 quarters. Suddenly maths came in handy because after every round of the football league I used to write down how many yellow cards each player got. As a sports journalist, I was able to interview my idol Pete Sampras, my dad's idol Pele, until I moved down a floor in the newsroom to Thursday's DNES Magazine in 2003. Three years later, I started running it while writing columns that later appeared in my first book, Enter, Mom! The years passed, the hair grew less and less, and today there are over eight hundred of them. Books were added. After the sports biographies I am! (Petr Koukal) and Other (Gabriela Koukalová) I got to the genre I like best of all. I spent many months with people of interesting professions and the following book interviews were gradually produced. Vladimir Benes: My Journeys into the Depths of the Brain (2019). David Hecl: The Captain is speaking to you (2021). Josef Mareš: My Ward 1 cases (2022). Marek Dvorak: Between Heaven and the Patient (2023). Adam Dolnik: The World of the Elite Negotiator (2024). Helena Sováková: Colonel of Human Souls (2025). Strict teacher mom always kept me grounded, but I guess I can say this: have all become bestsellers. And the one with the air ambulance doctor Mark Dvořák even won the Magnesia Litera readers' prize. For which I thank you all!
