B
rave Men, Gentle Heroes presents
the frank, moving, and harrowing stories
of men who served in World War II
and their sons who served in Vietnam
– fathers and sons bonded as
deeply by their common experience
in war as by blood.
These are men who served in the Army,
Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps.
Officers and enlisted men, career
servicemen and citizen soldiers. Men
of European, African, Asian, Latino,
and Native American ancestry. Men
who speak in the authentic voices
of an Indiana farmer, a Brooklyn bus
driver, a Louisiana small businessman,
a Seattle machinist.
The contrasts between World War II
and Vietnam are well known to Americans,
and they are everywhere in these compelling
accounts: the clear aims of World
War II, the muddled goals in Vietnam;
the heroes' welcome accorded the World
War II veterans, the scorn heaped
upon their sons. But the stories in
Brave Men, Gentle Heroes are also
rich with elements intrinsic to all
wars and all soldiers: courage, honor,
service, duty, youth, adventure, fear,
idealism, love of country and of family,
exasperation with military bureaucracy.
In these pages you will find war's
carnage and war's heroism, war's purpose
and war's futility, war's meaning
and war's tragic meaninglessness.
Taken together, the stories in Brave
Men, Gentle Heroes tell the history
of the two wars, each the defining
experience of a generation. This is
history told not at the level of presidents
and generals, but through the recollections
of the men who shouldered the rifles,
manned the ships, and flew the planes.
We're familiar with the effects of
the two wars on world politics. But
what did they do to American families?
Molded by the awful crucible of war,
these seemingly ordinary men offer
extraordinary insights into what it
means to be a warrior, an American,
a father, and a son.
Brave Men, Gentle Heroes is a book
for those who have been to war and
those who have been spared its horror.
It is a book for individuals to reflect
upon and families to share.
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