CHARLESTON, S.C. - As we honor servicemen and -women for their patriotism, and willingness to serve and sacrifice for their country and everyone in it, we take a look at some of their stories.
Tales of war have been handed down for centuries. From biblical battles to the Trojan war, across the histories of Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Americas, writers have and continue to write stories that explore the things soldiers take into battle but also what follows them home.
Check out our list of books, audiobooks, and movies that shed light on that experience as we celebrate Veterans Day.
Amagansett by Mark Mills
In the small town of Amagansett, perched on Long Island's windswept coast, generations have followed the same calling as their forefathers, fishing the dangerous Atlantic waters. Little has changed in the three centuries since white settlers drove the Montaukett Indians from the land. But for Conrad Labarde, a second-generation Basque immigrant recently returned from the Second World War, and his fellow fisherman Rollo Kemp, this stability is shattered when a beautiful New York socialite turns up dead in their nets.
Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain
Nineteen-year-old Billy Lynn is brought home for a victory tour after a harrowing Iraq battle. Through flashbacks the film shows what really happened to his squad, contrasting the realities of war with America's perceptions.
The Ha-Ha by Dave King
Wounded years earlier in Vietnam, Howard Kapostash is unable to speak, read, or write, although his intelligence is normal. Now middle-aged, he lives a lonely existence, deliberately avoiding contact with others whenever possible. But then his former high school sweetheart entrusts her nine-year-old son to Howard when she enters drug rehab. Suddenly a father figure, Howard begins to open up, and the emotional wounds of his past start to mend.
A Hard and Heavy Thing by Matthew Hefti
Contemplating suicide after nearly a decade at war, Levi sits down to write a note to his best friend Nick, explaining why things have to come to this end. Years earlier, Levi--an army sergeant--made a tragic choice that led his team into ambush, leaving three soldiers dead and two badly injured. During the attack, Levi risked death to save a badly burned and disfigured Nick. His actions won him the Silver Star for gallantry, but nothing could alleviate the guilt he carried after that fateful day. He may have saved Nick in Iraq, but when Levi returns home and spirals out of control, it is Nick's turn to play the savior, urging Levi to write.
Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles by Anthony Swofford
When the U.S. Marines -- or "jarheads" -- were sent to Saudi Arabia in 1990 for the first Gulf War, Anthony Swofford was there. He lived in sand for six months; he was punished by boredom and fear; he considered suicide, pulled a gun on a fellow marine, and was targeted by both enemy and friendly fire.
The Last of the Doughboys: The Forgotten Generation and Their Forgotten World War by Richard Rubin
They were the final survivors of the millions who made up the American Expeditionary Forces, nineteenth-century men and women living in the twenty-first century. Self-reliant, humble, and stoic, they kept their stories to themselves for a lifetime, then shared them at the last possible moment, so that they, and the World War they won – the trauma that created our modern world – might at last be remembered.
One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer by Nathaniel Fick
Nathan Fick, a former captain in the First Reconnaisance Battalion of the United States Marine Corps, fought in Afghanistan and Iraq. He reveals how the Corps trains its elite and offers a vivid account of twenty-first century battle.
Peace: A Novel by Richard Bausch
Italy, near Cassino. The terrible winter of 1944. A dismal, icy rain, continuing unabated for days. Guided by a 70-year-old Italian man in rope-soled shoes, three American soldiers are sent on a reconnaissance mission up the side of a steep hill that they discover, before very long, to be a mountain. And the old man's indeterminate loyalties only add to the terror and confusion that engulf them on that mountain, where they are confronted with the horror of their own time - and then set upon by a sniper.
Redeployment by Phil Klay
Phil Klay's Redeployment takes readers to the frontlines of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, asking us to understand what happened there, and what happened to the soldiers who returned. Interwoven with themes of brutality and faith, guilt and fear, helplessness and survival, the characters in these stories struggle to make meaning out of chaos. In "Redeployment", a soldier who has had to shoot dogs because they were eating human corpses must learn what it is like to return to domestic life in suburbia, surrounded by people "who have no idea where Fallujah is, where three members of your platoon died."
Soldier Girls: The Battles of Three Women at Home and at War by Helen Thorpe
Describes the experiences of three women soldiers deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq to reveal how their military service has affected their friendship, personal lives and families, detailing the realities of their work on bases and in war zones and how their choices and losses shaped their perspectives.
Thank You for Your Service by David Finkel (This is a book club kit.)
In the ironically named Thank You for Your Service, Finkel writes with tremendous compassion not just about the soldiers but about their wives and children. Where do soldiers belong after their homecoming? Is it possible, or even reasonable, to expect them to rejoin their communities as if nothing has happened? And in moments of hardship, who are soldiers expected to turn to if they feel alienated by the world they once lived in? These are the questions Finkel faces as he revisits the brave but shaken men of the 2-16.
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
"The Things They Carried" depicts the men of Alpha Company: Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Norman Bowker, Kiowa, and the character Tim O'Brien, who has survived his tour in Vietnam to become a father and writer at the age of forty-three. It has become required reading for any American and continues to challenge readers in their perceptions of fact and fiction, war and peace, courage and fear and longing.
Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson
This is the story of William "Skip" Sands, CIA, engaged in psychological operations against the Vietcong, and the disasters that befall him. This is also the story of the Houston brothers, Bill and James, young men who drift out of the Arizona desert and into a war in which the line between disinformation and delusion has blurred away. In its vision of human folly, this is a story like nothing in our literature.
War by Sebastian Junger
An embedded reporter's account of soldiers' experiences of war, based on his own experiences following a single platoon through a 15-month tour of duty in the most dangerous outpost in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley.
Why Marines Fight by James Brady
For more than two centuries, U.S. Marines have been among the world's fiercest and most admired of warriors. This pounding look into the U.S. Marines is magnificent in scope and is written by an author that some Marines consider to be the unofficial poet laureate of their corps. Brady interviews combat marines from wars ranging from World War II to Iraq and Afghanistan, and records their responses in their own unique and powerful voices. These he crafts into an authentically American story of a country at war, as seen through the eyes of its warriors. Americans who experience Brady's chronicle of this part of a soldier's life and its lasting effect may find it impossible to forget.
Youngblood: A Novel by Matt Gallagher
The US military is preparing to withdraw from Iraq, and newly-minted lieutenant Jack Porter struggles to accept how it's happening--through alliances with warlords who have Arab and American blood on their hands. Day after day, Jack tries to assert his leadership in the sweltering, dreary atmosphere of Ashuriyah. But his world is disrupted by the arrival of veteran Sergeant Daniel Chambers, whose aggressive style threatens to undermine the fragile peace that the troops have worked hard to establish.