The night before my dear friend Gina faced a delicate surgery that could have left her paralyzed from the waist down, she handed me a ziplock bag containing yellowed letters dating back to World War II. “No matter what happens to me, I want you to tell Bud’s story,” she said. “Promise me!” And so I did. What followed was a deep dive into what had happened to Gina’s uncle, Sergeant Bud Richardville, a young man drafted into the Army as the U.S. prepared to enter the war in Europe.
Bud Richardville is inducted into the Army as the United States prepares to enter World War II in 1943. Assigned to the Graves Registration Service, Bud’s unit is tasked with locating, identifying, and burying the dead. Leaving behind his new wife, Lorraine, a mysterious woman who has stolen his heart but whose shadowy past leaves many unanswered questions.
When Bud and his men hit the beach at Normandy, they are immediately thrust into the horrors of what working in a graves unit entails. Bud is beaten down by the gruesome demands of his job and losses in his personal life, but then he meets Eva, an optimistic soul who, despite the war, can see a positive future. Will Eva's love be enough to save him?
This book is Stephen Ambrose’s seminal work about World War II’s Easy Company, part of the Army’s 101st Airborne Division. The story, based on interviews with the soldiers who survived, revolves around Lieutenant Dick Winters as he guides men already hardened by the depravations of the Depression through boot camp, to the beaches of Normandy, to the Battle of the Bulge, and ultimately to the capture of Hitler’s private lair: Eagle’s Nest in Berchtesgaden.
Early on, the men of Easy Company suffer during basic training under Lieutenant Colonel Herbert Sobel, a man who utilizes harsh, demoralizing punishments and whom his men despise. Still, he ultimately molds them into highly competent paratroopers. However, Sobel is a complete failure as a field commander, so it is Winters who rises to the rank of captain, leads from the front, never turns down a tough assignment, and is beloved by his men.
The soldiers of Easy Company are far from perfect. They often brawl, drink too much, and loot, but in battle, they fight selflessly, protecting one another and willing to die for their brothers, which many of them do. The book depicts real war, with dirt and blood, bravery, and unlikely heroes.
They fought on Utah Beach, in Arnhem, Bastogne, the Bulge; they spearheaded the Rhine offensive and took possession of Hitler's Eagle's Nest in Berchtesgaden. Easy Company, 506th Airborne Division, U.S. Army, was as good a rifle company as any in the world. From their rigorous training in Georgia in 1942 to D-Day and victory, Ambrose tells the story of this remarkable company, which kept getting the tough assignments. Easy Company was responsible for everything from parachuting into France early D-Day morning to the capture of Hitler's Eagle's Nest at Berchtesgaden. BAND OF BROTHERS is the account of the men of…
Kristin Hannah examines the untold story of the nurses who served in the Army during the Vietnam War, sometimes in lonely jungle outposts, as they toil to piece broken soldiers back together or just hold their hands as they die. Their experiences are horrifying and heartbreaking, yet sometimes, a bit of humor shines through.
The carnage is seen through the eyes of Frances “Frankie” McGrath, a naive 20-year-old raised in privilege whose family only expects her to marry and have children. But when her brother leaves to fight in Vietnam, Frankie follows.
The moment Frankie faces her peers in her perfect white uniform, heels, and stockings, she senses she’s made a mistake. These women, splattered with blood, appear in ragged shorts, T-shirts, and Army boots and smirk at the new kid, but then they take Frankie by the hand and teach her what it means to be a combat nurse.
It is after the war, when some of these women seek help for PTSD, that a reader wants to scream. They are told by support groups and the VA, “You didn’t fight! You didn’t see battle! You don’t belong here!” And still, somehow, together, they manage to survive.
From master storyteller Kristin Hannah, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Nightingale and The Four Winds, comes the story of a turbulent, transformative era in America: the 1960s. The Women is that rarest of novels—at once an intimate portrait of a woman coming of age in a dangerous time and an epic tale of a nation divided by war and broken by politics, of a generation both fueled by dreams and lost on the battlefield.
“Women can be heroes, too.”
When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances “Frankie” McGrath hears these unexpected…
Once upon a time, war was portrayed as glorious. Smartly-dressed soldiers strutted off to battle as admiring crowds cheered their departure. But then came Erich Maria Remarque’s stunning semi-autographical rebuke. Remarque was conscripted into the Imperial German Army at 18 and was wounded in the poisonous trenches of World War I. While he survived, like many, he did not return home unscathed.
This book centers around young Paul Bäumer, an idealistic German boy raised in a picturesque village where patriotic speeches in school romanticize war and urge young men to sign up and fight for the Fatherland. He and his friends do just that and soon find themselves mired in the horrific conditions of trench warfare, a new kind of battle where little ground is ever made, and men die in all sorts of miserable ways.
As Paul and his peers struggle to do their duty, they succumb physically and mentally to the horrors of battle. Even a trip home leaves Paul in anguish. He has changed so dramatically that home feels alien. Paul has become someone else, a man who can see no future, and through his eyes, we see what war really is.
The story is told by a young 'unknown soldier' in the trenches of Flanders during the First World War. Through his eyes we see all the realities of war; under fire, on patrol, waiting in the trenches, at home on leave, and in hospitals and dressing stations. Although there are vividly described incidents which remain in mind, there is no sense of adventure here, only the feeling of youth betrayed and a deceptively simple indictment of war - of any war - told for a whole generation of victims.
The story of Shoshana Johnson is one that most people have never heard. In fact, when Johnson was taken as a prisoner of war in Iraq, news outlets initially proclaimed that just four American men had been detained.
Other women were involved that day in 2003 near Nasiriyah when their supply convoy made a wrong turn. Lori Piestewa was the first Native American female soldier killed on foreign soil. Jessica Lynch was seriously injured, captured by Iraqi soldiers, and finally rescued by U.S. special operations forces. In the meantime, Johnson was taken prisoner after a 22-day ordeal and became the first African-American woman to be a POW.
A single mom, Johnson joined the Army to earn money to attend culinary school. During the battle, she suffered bullet wounds to both ankles. Like Lynch, Johnson received a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart for her service in Iraq.
While Lynch’s deeds were suffused with spun “heroism” and broadcast nationwide—stories Lynch criticized as untrue—Johnson’s capture and subsequent rescue received barely a blip in the news. When she returned home, suffering from PTSD, the military offered her a $50 bump in pay for her trouble.
One wonders why Johnson’s story isn’t more well-known.
SHOSHANA HOLDS NOTHING BACK in this harrowing account of an ordinary woman caught in extraordinary circumstances. She reveals decisions made by chain of command that may have led to her twenty-two-day imprisonment, describes the pain of post-traumatic stress disorder, and shares the surprising story of how a specialist in a maintenance company ended up on the front lines of war. Told with exceptional bravery and candor, I’m Still Standing is at once a provocative look at the politics of war and the unforgettable story of a single mom and soldier who became an American hero.
If you are looking for a traditional war novel, Dalton Trombo’s 1938 masterpiece is not it. The World War I tale of American Joe Bonham is a horror story, a gruesome, disturbing, anti-war novel told from Bonham’s point of view as he lies in a hospital bed after being wounded by a shell.
But wounded doesn’t actually explain his situation. Bonham’s arms and legs are gone. He is also blind and deaf, and his face is missing. No eyes, ears, tongue, nose, or teeth. All he can do is think. He recalls his life before the war: his first girlfriend, best friend Bill, and his parents, but the past is soon replaced by the terror of his new life.
Understandably, Joe decides that he wants to die. He tries to kill himself in various ways, but studious nurses keep rescuing him. One scene, where a new nurse pulls back his covers and weeps, tears spilling onto Joe’s body, is heartbreaking.
The only way Joe can communicate is by banging what’s left of his head on his pillow, an attempt at using Morse code, an effort to relay his desire to die.
“Trumbo sets this story down almost without pause or punctuation and with a fury accounting to eloquence.”—The New York Times
This was no ordinary war. This was a war to make the world safe for democracy. And if democracy was made safe, then nothing else mattered—not the millions of dead bodies, nor the thousands of ruined lives. . . . This is no ordinary novel. This is a novel that never takes the easy way out: it is shocking, violent, terrifying, horrible, uncompromising, brutal, remorseless and gruesome . . . but so is war.
Too often, I find that novelists force the endings of their books in ways that aren’t true to their characters, the stories, or their settings. Often, they do so to provide the Hollywood ending that many readers crave. That always leaves me cold. I love novels whose characters are complex, human, and believable and interact with their setting and the story in ways that do not stretch credulity. This is how I try to approach my own writing and was foremost in my mind as I set out to write my own book.
The Oracle of Spring Garden Road explores the life and singular worldview of “Crazy Eddie,” a brilliant, highly-educated homeless man who panhandles in front of a downtown bank in a coastal town.
Eddie is a local enigma. Who is he? Where did he come from? What brought him to a life on the streets? A dizzying ride between past and present, the novel unravels these mysteries, just as Eddie has decided to return to society after two decades on the streets, with the help of Jane, a woman whose intelligence and integrity rival his own. Will he succeed, or is it too late?
In the tradition of Graham Greene, this is a book about love, betrayal, and life’s heavenly music
“Crazy Eddie” is a homeless man who inhabits two squares of pavement in front of a bank in downtown Halifax, Nova Scotia. In this makeshift office, he panhandles and dispenses his peerless wisdom. Well-educated, fiercely intelligent with a passionate interest in philosophy and a profound love of nature, Eddie is an enigma for the locals. Who is he? Where did he come from? What brought him to a life on the streets? Though rumors abound, none capture the unique worldview and singular character that led him to withdraw from the perfidy and corruption of human beings. Just as Eddie has…
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