Download or read book A Small Town Goes to War written by Michael Lyga and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2013-02-12 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As did all communities in America, Independence, Wisconsin, contributed heavily toward the effort of defeating the Axis during World War II. Independence is a small rural community in the west-central part of the state, and most of its young men and women had never traveled far from home before finding themselves on trains heading to basic training. They then found themselves stationed throughout the world, fighting for an ideal that some probably didn't even understand fully. Some of them did not return. Over several years in the 1990's, the author, whose father himself was an artillery officer in the Pacific Theater, interviewed and corresponded with many veterans and their families, obtaining oral histories, written histories, and other documents. He also reviewed the local newspaper, the Independence News-Wave, whose publisher, Glenn Kirkpatrick, did a magnificent job of keeping people in the "trade area" as informed as possible of the whereabouts of its young service men and women. Through 22 oral histories, 82 additional thorough biographies, and more than 175 shorter "glimpses," "A Small Town Goes To War" is the author's attempt at preserving the history of his hometown's participation in World War II. The book contains many photos and letters in their entirety. Among the stories are those of a Merrill's Marauder, a Nuremberg assistant prosecutor, POW's, a physical trainer of the Navy's first black officers, and Trempealeau County's highest decorated veteran (Distinguished Service Cross and two Silver Stars), all of whom hailed from Independence. Also included is a most bizarre story involving a member of the 1st Cavalry Division that happened thirty years after his participation in the Battle for Manila.

Download or read book The Morenci Marines written by Kyle Longley and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2015-06-15 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1966, nine young men left the Arizona desert mining camp of Morenci to serve their country in the far-flung jungles of Vietnam, in danger zones from Hue to Khe Sanh. Ultimately, only three survived. Each battled survivor’s guilt, difficult re-entries into civilian life, and traumas from personally experiencing war—and losing close friends along the way. Such stories recurred throughout America, but the Morenci Marines stood out. ABC News and Time magazine recounted their moving tale during the war, and, in 2007, the Arizona Republic selected the “Morenci Nine” as the most important veterans’ story in state history. Returning to the soldiers’ Morenci roots, Kyle Longley’s account presents their story as unique by setting and circumstance, yet typical of the sacrifices borne by small towns all across America. His narrative spotlights a generation of young people who joined the military during the tumultuous 1960s and informs a later generation of the hard choices made, many with long-term consequences. The story of the Morenci Marines also reflects that of their hometown: a company town dominated by the Phelps Dodge Mining Corporation, where the company controlled lives and the labor strife was legendary. The town’s patriotic citizens saw Vietnam as a just cause, moving Clive Garcia’s mother to say, “He died for this cause of freedom.” Yet while their sons fought and sent home their paychecks, Phelps Dodge sought to destroy the union that kept families afloat, pushing the government to end a strike that it said undermined the war effort. Morenci was also a place where cultures intermingled, and the nine friends included three Mexican Americans and one Native American. Longley reveals how their backgrounds affected their decisions to join and also helped the survivors cope, with Mike Cranford racing his Harley on back roads at high speeds while Joe Sorrelman tried to deal with demons of war through Navajo rituals. Drawing on personal interviews and correspondence that sheds new light on the Morenci Nine, Longley has written a book as much about loss, grief, and guilt as about the battlefield. It makes compelling reading for anyone who lived in that era—and for anyone still seeing family members go off to fight in controversial wars.

Download or read book An American Town Goes to War written by Tony Pavia and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 2002-06-15 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every single person in America was touched by the events of World War II. Sixteen million Americans served their country in every corner of the globe. This is the story of a group of men who went off to war. They are all from one town, Stamford, CT, but their stories are universal. Author Tony Pavia has interviewed veterans from Stamford, listening to their personal stories as well as stories from those loved ones whom the veterans left behind. One of the most comprehensive oral histories of its kind, this book chronicles every major theater, battle and branch of service in the words of those who lived it.

Download or read book Discovering Gettysburg written by W. Stephen Coleman and published by Grub Street Publishers. This book was released on 2017-07-19 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “witty, entertaining, educational” blend of travel memoir and Civil War history (Scott L. Mingus, Sr, award-winning author of Flames beyond Gettysburg). Gettysburg is a small, charming city nestled in south central Pennsylvania—but its very name evokes passion and angst, enthusiasm and sadness. For about half the year its streets are mainly empty, its businesses quiet, the weather cold and blustery. For the other months, however, the place teems with hundreds of thousands of visitors, bustling streets and shops, and more than a handful of unique larger-than-life characters. And then, of course, there is the Civil War battle that raged there during the first days of July 1863 at the price of more than 50,000 casualties. Its monuments and guns and plaques tell the story of the colossal clash of arms and societies, just as its National Cemetery bears silent witness to at least part of the cost of that bloody event. Yet, the author explains, he did not fully appreciate the profound meaning of this mammoth battle, its influential characters (living and dead), its deep meaning to our society, until he visited this hallowed ground in person. In this travelogue, you can join him at a host of famous and off-the-beaten-path places on the battlefield, explore the historic town as it is today, and learn fascinating facts and stories. Also included are maps and caricatures provided by award-winning cartoonist Tim Hartman.

Download or read book Unlikely Warrior written by Robert C. Lovell and published by Two Harbors Press. This book was released on 2010-03-29 with total page 610 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A tale of life, love, and growing up as part of The Greatest Generation, Unlikely Warrior is one memoir you'll never forget.

Download or read book A Small Town Near Auschwitz written by Mary Fulbrook and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2012-09-20 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Silesian town of Bedzin lies a mere twenty-five miles from Auschwitz; through the linked ghettos of Bedzin and its neighbouring town, some 85,000 Jews passed on their way to slave labour or the gas chambers. The principal civilian administrator of Bedzin, Udo Klausa, was a happily married family man. He was also responsible for implementing Nazi policies towards the Jews in his area - inhumane processes that were the precursors of genocide. Yet he later claimed, like so many other Germans after the war, that he had 'known nothing about it'; and that he had personally tried to save a Jew before he himself managed to leave for military service. A Small Town Near Auschwitz re-creates Udo Klausa's story. Using a wealth of personal letters, memoirs, testimonies, interviews and other sources, Mary Fulbrook pieces together his role in the unfolding stigmatization and degradation of the Jews under his authoritiy, as well as the heroic attempts at resistance on the part of some of his victims. She also gives us a fascinating insight into the inner conflicts of a Nazi functionary who, throughout, considered himself a 'decent' man. And she explores the conflicting memories and evasions of his life after the war. But the book is much more than a portrayal of an individual man. Udo Klausa's case is so important because it is in many ways so typical. Behind Klausa's story is the larger story of how countless local functionaries across the Third Reich facilitated the murderous plans of a relatively small number among the Nazi elite - and of how those plans could never have been realized, on the same scale, without the diligent cooperation of these generally very ordinary administrators. As Fulbrook shows, men like Klausa 'knew' and yet mostly suppressed this knowledge, performing their day jobs without apparent recognition of their own role in the system, or any sense of personal wrongdoing or remorse - either before or after 1945. This account is no ordinary historical reconstruction. For Fulbrook did not discover Udo Klausa amongst the archives. She has known the Klausa family all her life. She had no inkling of her subject's true role in the Third Reich until a few years ago, a discovery that led directly to this inescapably personal professional history.

Download or read book A Small Town the Great War written by Douglas Bridgewater and published by . This book was released on 2021-09-03 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Lost Continent written by Bill Bryson and published by VNR AG. This book was released on 1989 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to." And, as soon as Bill Bryson was old enough, he left. Des Moines couldn't hold him, but it did lure him back. After ten years in England he returned to the land of his youth, and drove almost 14,000 miles in search of a mythical small town called Amalgam, the kind of smiling village where the movies from his youth were set. Instead he drove through a series of horrific burgs, which he renamed Smellville, Fartville, Coleslaw, Coma, and Doldrum. At best his search led him to Anywhere, USA, a lookalike strip of gas stations, motels and hamburger outlets populated by obese and slow-witted hicks with a partiality for synthetic fibres. He discovered a continent that was doubly lost: lost to itself because he found it blighted by greed, pollution, mobile homes and television; lost to him because he had become a foreigner in his own country.

Download or read book The Summer Before the War written by Helen Simonson and published by Random House. This book was released on 2016-03-22 with total page 493 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A novel to cure your Downton Abbey withdrawal . . . a delightful story about nontraditional romantic relationships, class snobbery and the everybody-knows-everybody complications of living in a small community.”—The Washington Post The bestselling author of Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand returns with a breathtaking novel of love on the eve of World War I that reaches far beyond the small English town in which it is set. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST AND NPR East Sussex, 1914. It is the end of England’s brief Edwardian summer, and everyone agrees that the weather has never been so beautiful. Hugh Grange, down from his medical studies, is visiting his Aunt Agatha, who lives with her husband in the small, idyllic coastal town of Rye. Agatha’s husband works in the Foreign Office, and she is certain he will ensure that the recent saber rattling over the Balkans won’t come to anything. And Agatha has more immediate concerns; she has just risked her carefully built reputation by pushing for the appointment of a woman to replace the Latin master. When Beatrice Nash arrives with one trunk and several large crates of books, it is clear she is significantly more freethinking—and attractive—than anyone believes a Latin teacher should be. For her part, mourning the death of her beloved father, who has left her penniless, Beatrice simply wants to be left alone to pursue her teaching and writing. But just as Beatrice comes alive to the beauty of the Sussex landscape and the colorful characters who populate Rye, the perfect summer is about to end. For despite Agatha’s reassurances, the unimaginable is coming. Soon the limits of progress, and the old ways, will be tested as this small Sussex town and its inhabitants go to war. Praise for The Summer Before the War “What begins as a study of a small-town society becomes a compelling account of war and its aftermath.”—Woman’s Day “This witty character study of how a small English town reacts to the 1914 arrival of its first female teacher offers gentle humor wrapped in a hauntingly detailed story.”—Good Housekeeping “Perfect for readers in a post–Downton Abbey slump . . . The gently teasing banter between two kindred spirits edging slowly into love is as delicately crafted as a bone-china teacup. . . . More than a high-toned romantic reverie for Anglophiles—though it serves the latter purpose, too.”—The Seattle Times

Download or read book A Small Town in Germany written by John le Carre and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2002-02-26 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: British security officer Alan Turner battles radical German students and neo-Nazis after an embassy flack disappears from Bonn with dozens of top secret files.

Download or read book Washington Goes to War written by David Brinkley and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2020-09-30 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: David Brinkley, one of America's most respected and celebrated news commentators, turns his journalistic skills to a personal account of the tumultuous days of World War II in the sleepy little Southern town that was Washington, D.C. Carrying us from the first days of the war through Roosevelt's death and the celebration of VJ Day, Brinkley surrounds us with fascinating people. Here are the charismatic President Roosevelt and the woman spy, code name "Cynthia." Here, too, are the diplomatic set, new Pentagon officials, and old-line society members--aka "Cave Dwellers." We meet the brashest and the brightest who actually ran the government, and the countless men and women who came to support the war effort in any way they could--all seeking to share in the adventure of their generation.

Download or read book War In My Town written by E. Graziani and published by Second Story Press. This book was released on 2015-03-23 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bruna is the youngest of seven children, living an idyllic life in a small Italian village in northern Tuscany. Though the Second World War has been raging in Europe for some time, the dangers haven't seemed to reach her, and the Italian leader Mussolini's allegiance with Hitler and the distant reports of fighting seem far away. But before long, Bruna's brothers are called to fight and by 1943 food rationing and shortages begin to take a toll on her family. Soon the Italian people turn against their fascist regime and war comes to the region. When the retreating Nazis occupy her village, Bruna struggles to cope and help her mother and sisters stand up to the soldiers. Her peaceful life is shattered when her beloved village and its occupants find themselves in the centre of the fighting between the Nazis and the Allied forces pursuing them - the final front defended by the Nazis in Europe.

Download or read book The Signal Flame written by Andrew Krivak and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-01-24 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The stunning second novel from National Book Award finalist Andrew Krivák—“an extraordinarily elegant writer, with a deep awareness of the natural world” (The New York Times Book Review)—tells the heartbreaking, captivating story about a family awaiting the return of their youngest son from the Vietnam War. In a small town in northeastern Pennsylvania, Hannah and her son Bo mourn the loss of the family patriarch, Jozef. They were three generations under one roof; a war-haunted family in a war-torn century. Jozef was conscripted into the Austro-Hungarian army in World War I. His American-born daughter’s husband, Bexhet, an immigrant, fights in World War II—returning to Dardan, Pennsylvania, only to be taken in a hunting accident on Hannah’s family’s land. Finally, Hannah’s younger son, Sam, goes MIA in Vietnam. And so there is only Bo, a quiet man full of sorrow and conviction and a firstborn’s sense of duty. He is left to grieve but also to hope for reunion, to fall in love and create a new life, to embrace the land and work its mountain soil. The Signal Flame is a stirring exploration—the second stand-alone novel in a trilogy that began with the National Book Award finalist The Sojourn—of generations of men and the events that define them, brothers who take different paths, the old European values yielding to new world ways, and the convalescence of memory and war. Beginning shortly after Easter in 1972 and ending on Christmas Eve—as the Vietnam War winds down—this ambitious novel honors the cycles of earth and body, humming with blood and passion, and it confirms as a writer of extraordinary vision and power. Andrew Krivák’s The Signal Flame is “a complex and layered portrait of a time and place, and a family shaped, generation after generation, by the memory of war” (The Boston Globe).

Download or read book Close Quarters written by Larry Heinemann and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2010-03-31 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the moment his first novel was published, Larry Heinemann joined the ranks of the great chroniclers of the Vietnam conflict--Philip Caputo, Tim O’Brien, and Gustav Hasford. In the stripped-down, unsullied patois of an ordinary soldier, draftee Philip Dosier tells the story of his war. Straight from high school, too young to vote or buy himself a drink, he enters a world of mud and heat, blood and body counts, ambushes and firefights. It is here that he embarks on the brutal downward path to wisdom that awaits every soldier. In the tradition of Naked and the Dead and The Thin Red Line, Close Quarters is the harrowing story of how a decent kid from Chicago endures an extraordinary trial-- and returns profoundly altered to a world on the threshold of change.

Download or read book Paradise Alley written by Kevin Baker and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-03-17 with total page 708 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: They came by boat from a starving land—and by the Underground Railroad from Southern chains—seeking refuge in a crowded, filthy corner of hell at the bottom of a great metropolis. But in the terrible July of 1863, the poor and desperate of Paradise Alley would face a new catastrophe—as flames from the war that was tearing America in two reached out to set their city on fire.

Download or read book Once Upon a Town written by Bob Greene and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-03-17 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In search of "the best America there ever was," bestselling author and award-winning journalist Bob Greene finds it in a small Nebraska town few people pass through today—a town where Greene discovers the echoes of the most touching love story imaginable: a love story between a country and its sons. During World War II, American soldiers from every city and walk of life rolled through North Platte, Nebraska, on troop trains en route to their ultimate destinations in Europe and the Pacific. The tiny town, wanting to offer the servicemen warmth and support, transformed its modest railroad depot into the North Platte Canteen. Every day of the year, every day of the war, the Canteen—staffed and funded entirely by local volunteers—was open from five a.m. until the last troop train of the day pulled away after midnight. Astonishingly, this remote plains community of only 12,000 people provided welcoming words, friendship, and baskets of food and treats to more than six million GIs by the time the war ended. In this poignant and heartwarming eyewitness history, based on interviews with North Platte residents and the soldiers who once passed through, Bob Greene tells a classic, lost-in-the-mists-of-time American story of a grateful country honoring its brave and dedicated sons.

Download or read book Clara s War written by Clara Kramer and published by Emblem Editions. This book was released on 2010-04-06 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “You lose your loved ones, and still you want to live.” On 21 July 1942, the Nazis reached the small Polish town of Zolkiew. Life for fifteen-year-old Clara Kramer would never be the same. While those around her were either slaughtered or transported, three families found perilous refuge in a hand-dug cellar. Hers was one of them. Living above and protecting them were the Becks. Mrs. Beck had been the families’ maid. Mr. Beck was alcoholic and a self-professed anti-Semite, yet he risked his life to keep his charges safe. But survival under his protection proved to be anything but predictable. Whether it was his nightly drinking sessions with officers of the SS in the room just above or his torrid affair with one of the hiding women, it seemed that Clara and the others often had as much to fear from Beck as they did from the war. Clara’s mother told her to keep a diary while they lived in the bunker in order to fill her time and “so the world would know what happened to us.” Over sixty years later, Clara Kramer has finally turned those diaries into a compelling and heartbreaking memoir — a story of love and memory and survival.