Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy Our Fathers' War: Growing Up in the Shadow of the Greatest Generation? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Our Fathers' War: Growing Up in the Shadow of the Greatest Generation. Check out the link below:
>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers
Our Fathers' War: Growing Up in the Shadow of the Greatest Generation ReviewAmerica's young men and women who grew up quickly during the 1940s became known as the Greatest Generation for their willingness to sacrifice for their country and families. Many were born into immigrant households; their parents came to this country for myriad reasons, whether to escape religious or political persecution or simply to make a better economic life.These "children" answered the call to duty, often at a terrible price. Even those who were fortunate enough to return from the battlefields did so as damaged goods, carrying scars both physical and psychic from their ordeals, problems that did not always end when they reached the safety of their home shores.
Tom Mathews was a son of one of these veterans. He relates his awkward experiences, and those of his contemporaries, in OUR FATHERS' WAR: Growing Up in the Shadow of the Greatest Generation.
The long-time Newsweek writer and editor reports on ten families for which those aforementioned scars never completely faded. The fathers returned home, still young men, to their own children born in their absence. Their need to feel control, after years when much was out of their control, impacted on these children. They were demanding, with little patience for what they perceived as weakness or cowardice in their progeny.
Grace under fire did not come easily to the older generation of Mathews's work. Despite accomplishing extraordinary things, many cursed themselves for self-imposed failures to act like Audie Murphy, one of WWII's most legendary figures.
Mathews writes of Murphy's own account of the action that won him the Congressional Medal of Honor, in which the All-American hero admitted to being scared.
"Manically, I hauled down the Oxford English Dictionary's giant Volume C. First I looked up courage: 'that quality of mind which shows itself in facing danger without fear or shrinking.'
'I was scared' [Murphy had written].
"Then I checked out coward: 'one who displays ignoble fear or want of courage in the face of danger.'
'I was scared' [Murphy had written].
"What was this? Either Audie Murphy was yellow or the accepted definition was full of s---. You didn't have to be a genius to cipher it out.... Without fear there could be no courage."
The theme of fear under wartime conditions, and the determination not to show such weakness back home, is a main component of each chapter.
Many veterans refused to talk about their experiences, perhaps believing that if you weren't there, there was no way you could understand. They passed their physic scars on to their children who grew up confused, at once desirous of the love and approval of their fathers, but at the same time repelled by the inexplicable hostility --- even physical abuse --- they received. In some cases the need for approval manifested itself when it was the younger generation's turn to fight in Vietnam, some of the sons acting heroically if recklessly, as if that would finally win their old man over.
As the book concludes with Mathews's reconciliation with his own father, readers might come to think that this book was a purgative for the author's troubled soul. He finds comfort in others like him (and it's amazing how many others there are).
A truly touching story, told with an aching longing for acceptance, understanding and love, OUR FATHERS' WAR is one that could carry over to present-day fathers and sons stuck in the quagmire of mis- or incommunications.
--- Reviewed by Ron KaplanOur Fathers' War: Growing Up in the Shadow of the Greatest Generation Overview
Want to learn more information about Our Fathers' War: Growing Up in the Shadow of the Greatest Generation?
>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now
