The Honors Jacket: The War Fought in the Heartland

By Joe Spiller

In December 1941 with America gearing up for war a teenage girl living with her family in Washington DC, ask permission to live with her grandparents on an Eastern Ohio Farmstead until the war is over. Suzanne Newman's Army Colonel father, preparing to ship out to the European Theater and her Mother consent to her request. Suzanne hopes to sit out the war in the rolling countryside of Holmes County, near Millersburg, Ohio. Instead, the war follows her to the Farmstead.In late autumn of 1944, Colonel Lance Newman wrote home...I can't share with you where I am today, but the soldiers call it 'the worse place, anywhere.' It's a long, long ways from Millersburg, Ohio."It was the war over there that created an entirely different kind of war, back here at home. Colonel Newman's Mother wrote in her diary, "Another night of sleep stolen from my tired body and soul by this despicable war. This war, this terrible war is eroding my humanity."The Honors Jacket is a story about battles fought in the heartland where telegrams from the Secretary of War became bombs dropped in the kitchen, living room or on the front porch, wherever the message was read. Explosively shattering the heart, the insidious, sparsely written message, 'regrets to inform you' detonates in the souls of Mothers, Fathers, Wives, Daughters, Sons, Sweethearts and Grandparents sentencing the recipient to a lifetime of confinement at heart-labor. Suzanne Newman and best friend Tom Darcy find refuge from the ravages of war by holding on to one another and never letting go, no matter the circumstances, and they fall in love along the tumultuous journey. Love of home. Love of family and the forever irrepressible love of two 1944 high school sweethearts. The war over there, 4,250 miles away in Germany, forces the young couple and others like them to mature on a fast track. The war in the south pacific, 7,600 miles away, would bring life on the farmstead to a crawl.The story is told through the journalistic lens of a local newspaper editor, Bill Beamon, beginning at the funeral of a prominent Millersburg, Ohio citizen in 2005. The deceased lies resplendent at the front of the church in an Honors Jacket. Searching for the story of the Honors Jacket Beamon explores through letters from the battlefield; through a plethora of diaries written decades earlier. His investigative journey for the Honors Jacket meaning uncovers human triumph and conflict stories archived in newspaper columns from his own weekly publication long before he hit the keys of an Underwood typewriter for the first time. Only the grit, sweat, love and determination of a 17-year-old girl with help from her best friend and neighbor saves the Newman Family Farm from financial ruin after a tractor accident. All the while, the days away from her Dad pile up as fast as the list of farm chores she has to complete on her own. One year later her brush with life and death is described in riveting detail.In a strange twist to life, love evolves before adolescence is over, and the maturation of a teenager into a man among men occurs long before his call to duty. Receiving his induction notice, Tom Darcy summons up the tough mental attitude of millions of young American males called to duty as he addresses his young sweetheart. 'Suzy, I am not afraid of anything or anyone I've met so far in my short life. I don't like the thought of going to war, but I am not afraid of it. Perhaps I will be afraid, once I am fully engaged, but I can't be frightened, as of yet, of something I know nothing of.'The Honors Jacket is not just a story of the heartland. It is a diorama of the war years in every village, town, countryside, and city in America in the 40's. The Honors Jacket is a tribute to the heroes of World War II, over there, and over here in the heartland of America.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1718032781
• ISBN13: 9781718032781
• Release Date: August 2018
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 564 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 1.3" x 6.0"