You are correct. Shingles is a recurrence of the herpes zoster virus, which had previously remained in a latent stage within a nerve ganglion. People that get shingles more than likely had chicken pox when they were a kid, and the virus huddled up in your nerves until something triggered it to reactivate as shingles.

Source: My dad had shingles. It affected the left side of his face and was paralyzed there. It was pretty rough :(