A tribute to soldiers packed with intriguing, vibrant details that make this a valuable addition to America’s historical...
A family honors World War II veterans in this extensive book recounting their experiences.
Inspired by the patriarch of this close-knit clan, the Miller family compiled this debut collection of soldiers’ stories. Most are the harrowing personal tales of the combatants’ struggles during the war, including which branch of the military they served in and the battles they fought in. The entries are usually no longer than two pages, submitted by family and friends, and a wide range of remembrances is represented, from a major league baseball player who almost lost a leg to a dental surgeon–turned-officer. They often read as brief snapshots or eulogies. For the avid history buff, some of the tales include refresher courses on specific battles. Pvt. George Young’s account, for instance, gives a thorough breakdown of his movements in Operation Cobra during the Normandy Campaign. The volume, illustrated by Ken Miller, is inclusive too: female veterans have space here, as do one man who was a child during the Battle of the Bulge and a woman who was interned by the Japanese during their occupation of Java. This book is a cross between a straightforward historical record and a vivid war narrative, and at times it would have benefited the work if the Miller family had chosen one approach. Each story, for instance, is presented in the form in which it was submitted. Some tales are told in the first person, from the viewpoint of the soldiers, while others are written by their loved ones from their perspectives. Others contain what look like the veterans’ service records or data about their lives. The inconsistency becomes a bit jarring, because each entry is in a different style. A stronger editorial hand would have made the presentation of these tales easier to digest. But the Miller family has achieved an impressive feat in gathering so many of them for readers. One small note: all of these stories are labeled “memoirs” but those written by family or friends should be characterized as biographical./p>
A tribute to soldiers packed with intriguing, vibrant details that make this a valuable addition to America’s historical record.Pub Date: Dec. 7, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-60645-176-2
Page Count: 338
Publisher: BookWise Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 21, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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