Memorial Day 2020: Home

These women took action in many ways: disguised as soldiers, working as field medics, as spies risking death to secure or pass along information, and more.

With a focus on fallen war-hero athletes, this book presents over a century's worth of men who faced the fears and uncertainties that come with life and made the ultimate sacrifice. Their stories give us a kaleidoscopic picture of America over the course of more than one hundred years, and through them we can explore the wars America has participated in, the values that Americans have celebrated, and what it has meant, over time, to be an American hero.

Largely overshadowed by World War II's "greatest generation" and the more vocal veterans of the Vietnam era, Korean War veterans remain relatively invisible in the narratives of both war and its aftermath. In the Shadow of the Greatest Generation not only gives voice to those Americans who served in the "forgotten war" but chronicles the larger personal and collective consequences of waging war the American way.

This inspiring anthology is the first to convey the rich experiences and contributions of women in the American military in their own words--from the Revolutionary War to the present wars in the Middle East. In excerpts from their diaries, letters, oral histories, and pension depositions--as well as from published and unpublished memoirs--generations of women reveal why and how they chose to serve their country, often breaking with social norms, even at great personal peril.    

Anthony Swofford's Jarhead is the first Gulf War memoir by a frontline infantry marine, and it is a searing, unforgettable narrative. Swofford weaves his experience of war with vivid accounts of boot camp (which included physical abuse by his drill instructor), reflections on the mythos of the marines, and remembrances of battles with lovers and family.

The first book-length study of Latina/o experiences in World War II over a wide spectrum of identities and ancestries--from Cuban American, Spanish American, and Mexican American segments to the under-studied Afro-Latino experience--Latina/os and World War II probes the controversial aspects of Latina/o soldiering and citizenship in the war, the repercussions of which defined the West during the twentieth century. The editors also offer a revised, more accurate tabulation of the number of Latina/os who served in the war.

Nisei Soldiers Break Their Silence is a compelling story of courage, community, endurance, and reparation. It shares the experiences of Japanese Americans (Nisei) who served in the U.S. Army during World War II, fighting on the front lines in Italy and France, serving as linguists in the South Pacific, and working as cooks and medics despite the fact that their immigrant parents had been imprisoned in camps as a consequence of Executive Order 9066.

Even as we celebrate the return of our military from wars in the Middle East, we are becoming increasingly aware of the struggles that await veterans on the home front. Red, White, and True offers readers a collection of voices that reflect the experiences of those touched by war from the children of veterans who encounter them in their fathers recollections of past wars to the young men and women who fought in the deserts of Iraq and Afghanistan.  

For the city's first two hundred years, the story told at Washington DC's symbolic center, the National Mall, was about triumphant American leaders. Since 1982, when the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated, the narrative has shifted to emphasize the memory of American wars. In Sacrificing Soldiers on the National Mall, Kristin Ann Hass examines this war memorial boom, the debates about war and race and gender and patriotism that shaped the memorials, and the new narratives about the nature of American citizenship that they spawned. Sacrificing Soldiers on the National Mall explores the meanings we have made in exchange for the lives of our soldiers and asks if we have made good on our enormous responsibility to them.

This is the story of Joe Ted (Bud) Miller, as told by his daughter, based on the daily letters he wrote to his family in 1944 and 1945. Katherine I. Miller, a communication scholar, brings to her father's letters - which form the centerpiece of the book - her scholarly training in analyzing issues such as the development of masculinity in historical context, the formation of adult identity, and the psychological effects of war.

Collecting the nationally-recognized poems of Victoria Kelly, When the Men Go Off to War captures the hopes, anxieties, and intimacies of the military spouse during a time of war. Written over the course of her husband's deployment in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Donald Anderson, a former U.S. Air Force officer, has compiled a haunting anthology of personal essays and short memoirs that span more than 100 years of warfare. Alvord White Clements, himself a veteran of the Second World War, introduces his grandfather Isaac N. Clements's Civil War memoir; the novelist Paul West writes of his father, a British veteran of World War I, as well as of his own boyhood recollections of the London Blitz. John Wolfe details the life-changing and life-threatening injuries he sustained in Vietnam and the hallucinations he experienced afterward.

This memoir, written with a simple and direct honesty that is rare indeed, follows a foot soldier's career from basic training to mustering out. It takes the reader into the jungles and caves of New Guinea and the Philippines during the long campaign to win the war against Japan. It is a powerful, gritty, and moving narrative of the life of a soldier during some of the most difficult fighting of World War II.

In 1968 Leroy TeCube left his home on the Jicarilla Apache reservation to serve as an infantryman in Vietnam. Year in Nam is his story of that long, terrifying, and numbing year of combat, one that profoundly affected the men in TeCube's platoon and tested the strength of his own Native American heritage.