Iwo Blasted Again - Hardcover

Ray Elliott

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0964142384 ISBN 13: 9780964142381

Publisher: Tales Press, 2006

Iwo Jima Marine veteran Jack Britton has carried the horror of combat and the loss of his young wife and his buddies with him for the past 60 years. Now, in the last 36 hours of his life in a hospital intensive care unit, he revisits those aspects of his life and grapples with his long-suffering questions about fate and self-doubt through a psychological phenomenon known as sundown syndrome.

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From the Back Cover:

"Ray Elliott's IWO BLASTED AGAIN truly captures the emotional hold that impacts the men who fought on Iwo Jima and is a stark reminder of the price of freedom." -- JACK LUCAS, Iwo Jima veteran, Medal of Honor recipient and author of "Indestructible" ... "Marine veteran Ray Elliott understands American war and warfare as few people do. His work is honest and raw and filled with truth, in the tradition of the great American war novelists who precede him." -- KAYLIE JONES, author of "A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries" and daughter of celebrated World War II novelist James Jones ... "Ray Elliott is making himself a much-needed spokesman for those soldiers who have survived a war, but not the horrifying results of that war. In a culture that celebrates 'support the troops,' this kind of work is important as a reminder of what battle can do to those innocents who are sent out to kill and be killed." -- JACK STOKES, retired English professor, playwright and World War II Army veteran ... "In IWO BLASTED AGAIN, Ray Elliott explores the subject of war and its aftermath in a realistic novel written in the powerful tradition of James Jones' masterpiece, 'The Thin Red Line.'" -- Dr. George Hendrick, University of Illinois professor emeritus of English, author and editor of "To Reach Eternity: The Letters of James Jones" ... "Ray Elliott has produced a unique portrayal of two vital aspects of what many combat veterans experience in their lifetime. He presents a vivid, very accurate, graphically true depiction of the horrors the individual encounters and endures in battle. For the remainder of their lives, most veterans extend great effort to blot out memories of their gruesome war experiences. To some degree they succeed. But, inevitably, it seems that in their later years, these long-dormant, suppressed memories return with surprising, haunting clarity." -- COL. GERALD RUSSELL, Iwo Jima veteran, U.S.M.C. retired

About the Author:

Ray Elliott, author of WILD HANDS TOWARD THE SKY, a post-World War II novel from the point of view of a 5-year-old boy whose father was a Marine killed on Guadalcanal before the boy can remember, and IWO BLASTED AGAIN, a novella about an aging Iwo Jima veteran in the last 36 hours of his life (released October 2006), has been a Marine, a farmer, an oil field roughneck, a construction worker, a truck driver, a bartender and a high school and college English and journalism educator in American public high schools and universities for more than 25 years. He retired from the classroom in 1999 to write full time.

During his enlistment in the Marine Corps, he served in the infantry with Charlie Company, First Battalion, Seventh Regiment, First Marine Division at Camp Pendleton, Calif., as a brig guard and turnkey in the guard company at Sangley Point, Luzon, Republic of the Philippines, and in the artillery with India Company Third Battalion, Tenth Regiment, Second Marine Division at Camp Lejuene, N.C.

As a journalist, he has been an editor, a publisher and an author of numerous works of nonfiction and has been a freelance writer since 1977, in addition to writing a personal column that was carried by a dozen regional newspapers in Central and Southern Illinois throughout this time. The strong interviewing skills and frank observations of human actions and motivations he has gained by these experiences are reflected in his writing.

Elliott is a board member and president of The James Jones Literary Society (a group that promotes public interest and academic research in the author's World War II novels FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, THE THIN RED LINE, THE PISTOL, WHISTLE and the non-fiction WWII), a board member of the Illinois Center for the Book, and a founding member of the Richard L. Pittman Marine Corps League in Urbana-Champaign, Ill. He continues to work with and encourage aspiring writers of all ages to find those stories within their own lives that hold up a mirror to life and reveal aspects of life to which others can relate.

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