The Hell Of War Comes Home

Owen W. Gilman Jr. stresses the US experience of war in the twenty-first century and argues that wherever and whenever there is war, there will be imaginative responses to it, especially the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Since the trauma of September 11, the experience of Americans at war has been rendered honestly and fully in a wide range of texts--creative nonfiction and journalism, film, poetry, and fiction. These responses, Gilman contends, have packed a lot of power and measure up even to World War II's literature and film. Like few other books, Gilman's volume studies these new texts-- among them Kevin Powers's debut novel The Yellow Birds and Phil Klay's short stories Redeployment, along with the films The Hurt Locker, American Sniper, and Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk. For perspective, Gilman also looks at some touchstones from the Vietnam War. Compared to a few of the big Vietnam books and films, this new material has mostly been read and watched by small audiences and generated less discussion. Gilman exposes the circumstances in American culture currently preventing literature and film of our recent wars from making a significant impact. He contends that Americans' inclination to demand distraction limits learning from these compelling responses to war in the past decade. According to Gilman, where there should be clarity and depth of knowledge, we instead face misunderstanding and the anguish endured by veterans betrayed by war and our lack of understanding.

Owen W. Gilman Jr. stresses the US experience of war in the twenty-first century and argues that wherever and whenever there is war, there will be imaginative responses to it, especially the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Since the trauma of September 11, the experience of Americans at war has been rendered honestly and fully in a wide range of texts--creative nonfiction and journalism, film, poetry, and fiction. These responses, Gilman contends, have packed a lot of power and measure up even to World War II's literature and film. Like few other books, Gilman's volume studies these new texts--among them Kevin Powers's debut novel The Yellow Birds and Phil Klay's short stories Redeployment, along with the films The Hurt Locker, American Sniper, and Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk. For perspective, Gilman also looks at some touchstones from the Vietnam War. Compared to a few of the big Vietnam books and films, this new material has mostly been read and watched by small audiences and generated less discussion. Gilman exposes the circumstances in American culture currently preventing literature and film of our recent wars from making a significant impact. He contends that Americans" inclination to demand distraction limits learning from these compelling responses to war in the past decade. According to Gilman, where there should be clarity and depth of knowledge, we instead face misunderstanding and the anguish endured by veterans betrayed by war and our lack of understanding.

Describes the federal government's failure to provide adequate resources for disabled veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan, examining the struggles they face, medical attention that they need, and efforts by families and non-profit groups to help them.

Highly Recommended by Dr. J. Hindman, School of Education, College of William & Mary What was it like living in a small sleepy Southern town when the war suddenly arrived on the doorstep 150 years ago? Th ese are the stories of residents from various walks of life, and the struggles they face as the Unions Peninsula Campaign deploys forces to Fort Monroe, engages just east of Williamsburg, then continues, On to Richmond! as their battle cry went. For example, -William & Mary students, like Th omas Barlow, face life-changing decisions: to return home, or enlist with his classmates? Some of them would become heroes, but many more casualties. -Slaves, like W.B. Nelson, must decide as well: should he remain with his master or runaway? While some remain, many become contrabands, and later freedmen, and colored troops. -Politicians, like Benjamin Butler of Boston, are given the rank of Major General despite the lack of any military experience, while General George B. McClellan, who despised President Lincoln and Washington politics, later runs for national offi ce. Neither transformation is particularly successful. -Williamsburg residents, like shopkeeper William W. Vest and family must decide between fl eeing as refugees, or staying, like William Peachy, lawyer, to endure Federal occupation. -Williamsburgs women, like Letitia Tyler Semple, lead efforts to improve soldier medical care, opening their homes to thousands of wounded. Others, like Mary Payne, persevere to be at her husbands bedside, while Miss Margaret Durfey falls in love with her patient.

Drawing upon original sources and published material, A Distant War Comes Home is a fascinating survey of the many individual stories that linked Maine with the war hundreds of miles away.

“A respected historian and researcher” —Publishers Weekly “A prize is waiting somewhere out there, which Linda Holmes richly deserves for revisiting some appalling realities in a positive way fifty years after the fact.” —Nancy Steffens Seaman, Smithsonian Magazine’s Board of Editors “A tribute to courage and determination of the men who endured it...I ate the book up, and was disappointed to come to the end so fast, and this hasn’t happened to me in a long time.” —Otto Schwarz, Burma Railway survivor and founder, USS Houston Survivors’ Association. ”Linda Goetz Holmes has focused on a most interesting, and somewhat neglected, period of the Allied POW experience — the hiatus between the end of the war and the return home... A useful addition to the growing body of literature on the Allied POW experience in Asia.”—Tim Bowden, Australian author and documentary producer. During the early days of World War II, Cecil Dickson and much of the 2/2 Australian Pioneer Battalion were forced to surrender to the Japanese. This group of POWs, along with captured American National Guard soldiers from Texas and California, and survivors from the sunk USS Houston, were shipped to Burma and Thailand to construct the infamous “Railway of Death” immortalized in the film Bridge Over the River Kwai. 16,000 Allied POWs would die toiling on the railway, and those who lived endured over three years of harsh slave labor until they were released to journey home. Respected military historian Linda Goetz Holmes tells Dickson’s story of his experiences in Japanese labor camps and his determined plan to survive and return to a normal life. Amazing photographs, taken secretly by other prisoners, and personal letters help chronicle this dark chapter in the history of Allied troops in the Pacific.

For readers of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk and Redeployment, a searing debut exploring the lives of veterans returning to their homes in the South. Lacerating and lyrical, We Come to Our Senses centers on men and women affected by combat directly and tangentially, and the peculiar legacies of war. The story “Evie M.” is about a vet turned office clerk whose petty neuroses derail even her suicide; in “We Come to Our Senses,” a hip young couple leaves the city for the sticks, trading film festivals for firearms; in “Colleen” a woman redeploys to her Mississippi hometown, and confronts the superior who abused her at war; and in “11/19/98” a couple obsesses over sitcoms and retail catalogs, extracting joy and deeper meaning. The story “Hers” is about the sexual politics of a combat zone.

Updated edition of Jack Sharkey's first novel which was released in 2002. War Comes Home follows one family from the beaches of Normandy in 1944 to 9/11/01.