“A picture is worth a thousand words.”
It is an old cliché but it’s what kept coming to mind while reading American Heroes on the Homefront: The Hearts of Heroes by Oliver North (and, in much smaller print, Bob Hamer).
We’ve heard the term “Wounded Warrior” a lot since 9/11, so often that maybe the meaning of that term, the individuals it stands for, are becoming more of an idea to people than a reality. This book will change that. And it starts with the cover – an image of desert colored combat boots, topped on one side with a uniform-clad flesh and bone leg and dangling Purple Heart medal and, on the other, a metal prosthetic.
It was this cover that caught my attention as I wandered through the US Military Section at a Barnes & Noble near our hotel. The cover was so compelling that I immediately picked the book up and began reading. While the cover image had captured my interest, it was nothing compared to what was held within its pages.
Based on the TV documentary series “War Stories” and a continuation of the American Heroes series, which has documented the stories of America’s fighting men and women since 9/11, American Heroes on the Homefront tells the stories of veterans, mostly Marines, and their families, after they leave the battlefield. For many, what happens after is the hardest part. Using a combination of powerful imagery and personal details, this book illustrates the pride, pain, sorrow, triumph, strength, and resiliency of those who offer to fight and die for this country and those who love and support them.
It introduces you to terms like “traumatic transfemoral amputation of the right leg” and “ruptured tympanic membrane” and, with graphic imagery from hospital beds and physical therapy rooms, shows you what they really mean. It walks you through the stories of men, and some women, full of life and pride, ambition and honor, making them tangible with photos of sunburned faces above sweaty battle rattle and peaceful days before the deployments at the Marine Corps Ball or on their wedding day, and then it takes you deep in their struggles – three, 7-month deployments in three years and volunteering to take a fourth shortly after returning home because a member of your replacement team was killed, allergic reactions to pain medication, experimental surgeries, blood transfusions, the struggle to build a new identity when all you ever wanted was to be a Marine.
It shows you the pain of the spouse left at home, the constant not knowing, followed, sometimes, by the even more difficult and permanent knowledge that the vibrant, powerful man you kissed goodbye at the terminal is coming home in a flag-draped coffin and you are left alone, a widow at 30, to raise your 14-month old daughter and the not-yet-born baby who will be the spitting image of him. And those whose loved ones came home, but who spent months and years next to their veterans’ beds, celebrating the first time he could bring a sippy cup to his mouth without help or holding his hand when, after 17 months and half a dozen surgeries, the decision has finally been made to amputate his foot.
In a tragic yet beautiful way, this book tells, as Paul Harvey used to say, “the rest of the story,” one which will bring home, in a most powerful way, the true meaning of sacrifice.
To learn more about the book or the author, go to: http://olivernorth.com/
© 2013 – 2020, Sarah Maples LLC. All rights reserved.
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