Last Letters Home

War letters are, by their nature, intensely emotional, honest and heartfelt documents. They are letters like no others, written when the extreme peril of battle forces one to look at life in an... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1593151632
• ISBN13: 9781593151638
• Release Date: October 2004
• Publisher: CDS
• Length: 127 Pages
• Weight: 2.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 11.5" x 0.8" x 9.8"

Customer Reviews

Astonishing, meaningful, heart-wrenching

When I was a student of political science, I had a professor who read to us letters home from the war front. He had a collection of pieces from lots of different countries, but messages were remarkably the same - human beings caught up in situations and conflict far beyond their making and often beyond our comprehension, not writing for king and country, but writing of home, writing to home. This collection follows many fine examples of this genre, from fourteen families; these letters are made all the more meaningful and poignant by the fact that their authors didn't return home alive. The concerns are very basic, but take on a palpable feel to them for the reader today -- care for home, family, plans for the future, honest emotion including fear. This collection spans the range of people from the most recent conflict -- it shows that many of the aspects of war are depressingly the same, no matter what historical era one is in. The courage of the families to put forward this kind of emotional part of their lives is matched only by the courage of the men and women who themselves lost their lives. The book, companion to a documentary produced by HBO, strives to be non-political; far from being an indictment of the current administration, it focuses instead upon the people involved at the 'ground level' of the conflict. Many of the families are in fact supporters of President Bush, firm in their convictions that the sacrifice of their loved ones was done in the name of democracy and the country. There is a forward by Senator John McCain, himself a veteran with experiences to tell, but even his family did not suffer the fate of receiving a last letter home from him. On this Veteran's Day, originally Armistice Day, after the war-to-end-all-wars (that in fact did not), it is proper to remember also those involved in the current struggles, which includes families back home, whose connection is largely through letters, and whose prayers are always that there will be another letter soon, that no letter becomes the last letter home. Read a part of our current affairs that will become a part of history in these letters, from the perspective of those actually doing the work in Iraq.