Some of my earliest memories of my Father are when I used to run into the garage at our old house, where he had carved himself a little crowded room normally used for storage. It was his half-radio-room-and-half-hangout place. My Father would spend hours during his days off from work in this wonderful “cave.” Here he would put on two, sometimes three, old Marconi Short-Wave Radios tuned to different Commercial Maritime Stations, as well as his Radio/Morse Transreceiver Station, all of them transmitting hundreds of messages using Radio and Morse code, Dits and Dots from all of dozens of Maritime Land Stations that monitor the traffic of Merchant Ships crossing the Strait of Gibraltar. My Father was a consummate Radio and Telegraph Operator who worked with the Moroccan Government, specifically the Ministry of Post, Telegraph, and Telephone. His job was to make contact with Ships crisscrossing the Straits of Gibraltar to help direct their traffic through Moroccan Territorial Waters, and Ports, thousands of ships using mainly Morse code.

Charley Valeras own father had spent almost 4 years fighting during WWII and lived out the rest of his life without a story to tell. To share stories that hadnt been discussed in decades, Valera conducted heartfelt interviews using video to pen and chronicled them in a way to bring the reader into the battlefield, aircraft or destroyer. A combination between The Greatest Generation and Saving Private Ryan.

The author draws on her father's account of the war and her extensive interviews with other veterans of the 92nd Division to describe the experiences of a naive southern white officer and his segregated unit on an intimate level. During the war, the protocol that required the assignment of southern white officers to command black units, both in Europe and in the Pacific theater, was often problematic, but Johnston seemed more successful than most, earning the trust and respect of his men at the same time that he learned to trust and respect them. Gene Johnston and the African American soldiers were transformed by the war and upon their return helped transform the nation. The 92nd Division of the Fifth Army was the only African American infantry division to see combat in Europe during 1944 and 1945, suffering more than 3,200 casualties. Members of this unit, known as Buffalo Soldiers, endured racial violence on the home front and experienced racism abroad. Engaged in combat for nine months, they were under the command of southern white infantry officers like their captain, Eugene E. Johnston.

Derek's lifelong work is about to be sold to pornographers for a lot of money. His wife has left him, for that and other reasons, and he's having a hard time keeping existential focus. Into this maelstrom, flies a package from his mother that contains his father's account of his experiences in the European theater of World War II. As he reads about his father's war, while struggling with the business deal and its ramifications for his idea of himself, he begins to expand his understanding not only of who his father was and the character of his country, but also of the ebb and flow of the seemingly conscious force of war. All of which comes into focused during one terrifying night of the rape of a girl.

Storytelling at its best, this compelling memoir graphically portrays the scarred emotional landscape of young men who seek a place in the world by way of a military career. Exhausted shadows of the past are brought alive with uncommon eloquence as the author looks back on his youth brimming with innocence, idealism and patriotism. A page turner, the book explores the complex nature of a man whose brave, daring and sometimes foolhardy exploits led to the essential task; building a scaffold of choices and attitudes by rendering meaning from the intractable depths of experience. What in other hands might be a dreary tale of adolescent angst, betrayal and disillusion, takes on truly pyrotechnic energy, lifting his coming of age from the mundane to the profound. Reviews Rating="Excellent" (top rating) by Writer's Digest "...What I like best is the humanity of the speaker. Narrators often glorify themselves or the people they love and consequently attack those who might have ever hurt them slightly. It seems those authors do not approach their lives from a position of power. But this book is filled with real people with distinctive voices, made human and vulnerable by their standards and faults and are loved all the more for them by the reader. Especially wonderful is the perspective on the world, the philosophies and stories presented with reasoning throughout, as well as the various layers of actual war and the psychology of boy and manhood ... the raw, relatable, vivid voice that is found inside ... the project is quite necessary and brilliant, and I hope it will come under the gaze of many a person interested at all in our worlds history or the intelligent wisdom of one who has lived." Rating="5 Stars" By jd2 (ID) In War Stories For My Grandchildren, the author vividly portrays how war is not always on the military battlefield. This unique book tells of war in all walks of life, be it young, old, personal, social or military. It connects the reader to war through the eyes and mind of the author who experienced these events as they unfolded. With a poignant view of the military, gained from a combined total of twenty plus years in the Air Force and Navy, he writes with the technical expertise of an insider and the wisdom acquired after five tours in Southeast Asia. Here's a bargain if I ever read one. The book contains about twenty different stories for the price of one book. Each story filled with a refreshingly honest point of view. Not just the blood and guts side of war but a deeper philosophical understanding of what it is, what it does, and how humanity can't seem to detach itself from it. Real life danger and excitement await the reader in stories like The Drowning of Helen Lee and Sea Dragon, as well as others. I'm sure his Grandchildren will enjoy them all. I did! Highly recommended from a satisfied reader. Jd2/SFR

"Reading My Father" is an intimate, moving, and beautifully written portrait of the novelist William Styron by his daughter, Alexandra.

"War Stories III," with free DVD included, brings to life the massive battles that finally defeated Nazi Germany--and the incredibly heroic American servicemen who saved the world from Nazi tyranny.

I often feel as though I've entered a standoff between what happens around me & what's going on inside--& this life that goes on & on inside my head goes on & on & on it seems almost without me, as it has since childhood . . . --from "Standoff" For three decades, David Rivard has written from deep within the skin of our times. With Standoff, he asks an essential question: In a world of noise, of global anxiety and media distraction, how can we speak to each other with honesty? These poems scan the shifting horizons of our world, all the while swerving elastically through the multitude of selves that live inside our memories and longings--"all those me's that wish to be set free at dawn." The work of these poems is a counterweight to the work of the world. It wants to deepen the mystery we are to ourselves, stretching toward acceptance and tenderness in ways that are hard-won and true, even if fleeting.

After discovering additional information pertaining to his paternal side of the family, author Christopher G. Pea revised his original book to provide the reader with a richly detailed account of each member of the Pea-Lara family, along with their respective spouses. Both highly informative and engaging, The Pea-Lara Story: Revisited retraces the familys roots that began in New Spain (Mexico), including the military exploits of the familys patriarch, Lt. Col. Jos Emeterio Pozas, who served under Spain and Mexico. In addition, the story includes an account of the familys life in Monterrey, Nuevo Len, Mexico, the Pea-Laras forced evacuation of the city during the height of the 1910-1920 Mexican Revolution, the familys assimilation into the United States, including the military service of six of the Pea-Lara sons during the Second World War and, finally, the familys postwar years. It is a family chronicle that includes almost two centuries of history telling. The Pena-Lara Story: Revisited provides the reader with a wealth of new and detailed information about the familys origins, some of which was recently discovered during an exhaustive search through Mexican Civil and Church archival records, as well as many United States civil and religious documents. This information now enlightens and contradicts long-held beliefs about the origins and lives of the Pea-Lara lineage.