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Long Shadows: Veterans' Paths to Peace
Winner of the 2008 Montaigne Medal, an award designated by the Hoffer Awards for thought-provoking titles. These are veterans with a point of view whose trajectories of belief had many different starting points, took many different paths, but in every case led to an abhorrence of war.; anti-war feeling among veterans has not been given the attention it deserves, and this volume is an attempt to correct that imbalance, writes Howard Zinn in the Foreword. Veterans speak of war and peace with a certain creditability that others lack. Having experienced war and peace more intimately than many others, their responses and thoughts reflect the life-defining or life-changing capacity of war. Long Shadows is a collection of 19 interviews with veterans who candidly discuss their paths from military involvement to peace activism. Beginning with a veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade during the Spanish Civil War and ending with a veteran of the Iraq war, each tells a unique story with an individual perspective, and yet, each echos the message of the futility and destruction of war. The long shadows of war are evident in each of the interviews, with each participant hoping that his or her experience will inform others and contribute to the public discussion.
310 pages, Perfect Paperback
First published October 26, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 8, 2022
White U.S. soldiers wounded in Vietnam were sent to the rear. Blacks were sent back out to fight.
July 3, 2008
For the past two Memorial Days I have attended the observance held by the Clarence Kailin chapter of Veterans for Peace in Madison, WI. This book contains the life journeys of members of that group describing how and why they entered the military, their experiences spanning the Spanish Civil War to Iraq, and the paths and struggles that led them to become active members of Veterans for Peace.
The accounts are almost stream of consciousness in nature and are extremely powerful and moving. Each truth teller relates their thoughts and experiences while a soldier and how their life path was affected in the years after. The sharing of their stories is a gift.
I can't imagine reading this book and not feeling in your soul the folly of war.
The accounts are almost stream of consciousness in nature and are extremely powerful and moving. Each truth teller relates their thoughts and experiences while a soldier and how their life path was affected in the years after. The sharing of their stories is a gift.
I can't imagine reading this book and not feeling in your soul the folly of war.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews