Voices from the Front: Letters Home from America's Military Family - Hardcover

Schaeffer, Frank

4.3

20 ratings by Goodreads

9780786714629: Voices from the Front: Letters Home from America's Military Family

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 078671462X ISBN 13: 9780786714629

Publisher: Da Capo Press, 2004

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Frank Schaeffer draws on his relationships with America's military families to gather a timely and powerful collection of writing from the soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Like Keeping Faith and Faith of Our Sons, Voices from the Front bridges the divide between those who are in, or who have family members in the military, and the rest of us who can take that service for granted. It is a book about the intimately emotional and human side of military service. While Faith of Our Sons reflected this war through the homefront struggles of a quietly courageous community of families, Voices From the Front takes us directly to the often invisible front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan: from first deployment to patrols to combat to field hospitals and, in some cases, homecoming. As Schaeffer has written of a group he has come to think of—politics apart—as the next greatest generation, "We need to know the men and women in combat better and to understand what they are going through." Powerful, moving and undeniable, Voices from the Front tells the story of this war in the voices of the Americans who are living—and dying—in it every day.

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About the Author:

Frank Schaeffer is the author of three novels including the just published "Zermatt," "Saving Grandma", and the highly acclaimed "Portofino." His novels have been translated into eight languages. Frank is also the co-author, with his son John Schaeffer, Cpl. USMC, "Keeping Faith—A Father-Son Story About Love And The United States Marine Corps" and the author of "Faith of our Sons: A Father's Wartime Diary. Frank has worked as a movie director and artist and lived in Switzerland, England, South Africa and the USA, where he resides in Boston and New York City.

From Booklist:

Editor Schaeffer follows two books based on his own family's experience of having a member on active military duty in the Middle East, Keeping Faith (2002) and Faith of Our Sons (2004), with a moving collection of letters by other veterans of the recent wars and their family members at home. Perhaps because Schaeffer's son is a marine, marine boot camp figures vividly in the letters about training, which attest that the marines have found ways of making boot camp demanding without brutality. The selections then move on to cover deployment (from these we learn that logistical miracles do not make soldiers' travel more comfortable), combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, the occupation of Iraq, and homecomings. Some letters are much more polished and informative than others, but all reflect hardship, comradeship, and taking the job seriously (of course, no weapons system gets to contact with the enemy without needing at least one fix). Some also reflect grief for lost comrades or family members. A valuable slice of soldierly experience in an ongoing war. Roland Green
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