by Ann DeWitt
What if you studied a particular military General from the American Civil War era and found that the court of public opinion handed down a verdict without reviewing all of the evidence? Would you ignore the facts and go with the court of public opinion? Or would you print in your book the dormant facts in which you uncovered?
Title: The Overcoat
Author: Conrad Larson
Genre: Fiction, Historical
Reviewer: Joyce Faulkner
ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 1931916535
I would like to have a couple of points made about this book. THE OVERCOAT
1; the character of Charlene in this book represents a lot of the character that makes this area special and the heritage of the Midwest special.
This character Charlene endures nearly impossible circumstances to live to her eighties and leave a heritage of warmth, love, a witness of strength of character through her life, daughter, and grandsons.
This individual could be recognized by many of your readers and they will attest to the above statements. All of the tragedies are real but the circumstances have been changed for purposes of the fictional plot of the mystery novel. The struggles of character Charlene are almost impossible to believe and the depiction through the historical fiction style makes the telling of this story easier to divulge the magnitude of pain and suffering in this manner.
The book was written to make a source of knowledge for heirs of the main Character in the book.
The family which this historical fiction is based had nearly been lost through the years. The ability to find information about the family tree is left to searching historical museums as very few acquaintances might know much information. The current generations will have very limited access to information in 20 years when there interests start to peak.
My next book will be an intense biography which is nearly complete as we speak and will be based on the daily logs of the trench warfare of WW1 veteran about his personal time in war with written experiences by and of Oscar Dahlgren of Nora Township , Lowry, and Pope County. Every effort is being made to represent the actual feeling and stresses of the war by duplicating the journals as written. The journals surfaced within the last five years and are very valuable, fragile and very old. The book will preserve this piece of history for ever.
Additional research at Pope County Historical Museum found a similar report of some of the same incidents mentioned in these journals of other local WW1 hero's. This set of journals includes a lot of mention of other local WW1 soldiers from this area. The hero's of this era are now down to one living soldier alive as we speak. The details of this war are compelling and worth understanding for us to understand the character of our families that sacrificed so much for our freedom and good life we now have.
Further research is planned to see if a map of Oscar Dahlgren's war encounters can be put together to add proximity to the cities in a map for Belgium and France that his Company had been engaged in warfare activities. Some of the communities listed in the Journals were completely destroyed and the maps aren't listing the old names.
The title of the next book will be "CARRY ON Pvt Dahlgren"
Title: Righteous Rescue: Heroism that Healed a Hurting Nation
Author: John L. Rothdiener
Genre: Fiction, Historical
Reviewer: Don Arndt
ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 1449703852
The year is 2010 and deep in the jungle of Vietnam are six POWs left over from the Vietnam War. They resemble the walking dead, each awaiting his final demise. They no longer had the strength to attempt an escape. After forty years is there still hope in a rescue? Has the American people and the government forgotten them? What plan does the Vietnamese Guard have for these six men? Why has General Yo kept them alive for so long and why were they never released? What has happened to their loved ones at home and do they still wait for them or has all hope of their return died out? And what about their faith in God. Had their unanswered prayers meant that even God has abandoned them?
Righteous Rescue is a gripping account of sacrifice and patriotism, responsibility and conviction. Rothdiener skillfully captures the memories of an unpopular war, and the hope of bringing together a nation after forty years.
Title: Cherries - A Vietnam War Novel
Author: John Podlaski
Genre: Fiction, Historical
Reviewer: Rob Ballister
ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 1452879818
A book chronicling the experiences of eighteen year-old Army Infantry soldiers during their tour in the Vietnam War. During the draft years, scores of naive, frightened, and awed young soldiers arrived daily in Vietnam; they were immediately branded "Cherries" (slang for virgins) by their in-country peers. Thrust into an unpopular war, these new recruits had much to learn before being accepted and fully trusted by their brothers. These boys were forced to become men virtually overnight, learning the ropes quickly to make life or death decisions, while depending upon one another to survive. The first few months in country served as an intense learning experience where they saw, heard, and endured things never thought to be humanly possible - providing they lived that long.
There are 2.5 million existing stories from soldiers having served in Vietnam. Cherries is unique in that it is told from a "Cherry's" point of view. The story follows a group of teenaged soldiers throughout their transitions from Cherries to war-hardened veterans. Their experiences are at times educational, horrific, comical, and tragic, in their never-ending search for the enemy through the dark, wet, bug-infested jungles and mountains of South Vietnam.
Though Vietnam serves as the setting for Cherries, this story could take place during any war.
Title: Spooks: They Strike from Beyond and Leave No Trace
Author: James P. Slusser, Sr.
Genre: Fiction, Historical
Reviewer: Bill McDonald
ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 0977143198
When Mary Ellen Winslow received her Master s degree in Nursing at Loyola of Chicago she never dreamed she d be using it in a helicopter over the jungles of Vietnam. But when her husband, a Korean War fighter ace, 16 years her senior, flew his plane into the side of a mountain rather than answer his Country's summons to return to service, and took one of his girlfriends with him, she somehow felt the only way to erase the shame and anger she felt was to serve in his place. This single-mindedness of purpose made Dusty , in her superiors opinions, the best field evacuation Nurse in Vietnam. It never seemed to matter to her how hot the LZ (landing zone) might be where she would have to go to pick up wounded soldiers or marines. They didn't realize that, as far as she was concerned, her life ended on that mountain when Jack slammed their Beechcraft into it. That was also the reason she showed absolutely no interest in the many young pilots, doctors, and other males that tried to attract her attention around the 125th Surgical Hospital at Da Nang; until, that is, Lieutenant Commander James Cooper came along. They say opposites attract. It must be true. Jim Cooper was the total antithesis of everything Dusty believed in. Her sole purpose for being in Vietnam was to save as many lives as she could. Jim Cooper was a Naval Intelligence Black Ops Spook whose sole purpose was to collect information about the enemy, and to do whatever he could to make as many Viet Cong and North Vietnamese die in the process as he possibly could. And if he wasn't t in Vietnam, he was in Europe, tracking down deserters from our own military with orders to retrieve or neutralize . He was a stone-cold killer and the more she tried to hate him the harder she fell in love with him. When he proposed and she accepted, the Military Hierarchy decided that it was not in the best interest of the war effort for them to marry and leave the military, so a Command conspiracy was formed that was designed to separate them forever. It almost succeeded. Spooks takes the reader through the horror of torn bodies on the battlefield to the intrigue of tracking defectors and spies through the streets of East Berlin. It clearly shows that all of the heroes of Vietnam weren't t big, tough guys with shaved heads, but a lot of them were little-bitty things with ponytails. But the main thing Spooks shows the reader is what it was really like for two people who met and fell in love in Hell.