This week I was at our Adirondack camp somewhere in the mountains of northern New York working on the next book. The woodstove was ticking away as the flames rose, my dog was snoring at my feet, and a battery-operated clock ticked the seconds by quietly on the beam overhead, the only sounds to be heard. No electric here for the last 44 years, when Dad and his 14 year old son (me) began building his dream of a hunting shack in the woods. A good place to concentrate.
It was snowing again outside, but the plowing could wait. I wanted to get this chapter on a Coast Guardsman at the Normandy landings done for the next book, The Things Our Fathers Saw Volume 5, on D-Day and the Battle of Normandy. I hope to have it completed near the 75th anniversary in June. That means probably July!
A memory for the first book as I was writing it four years ago popped up today at home on social media:
I’m working on my [first book of the] World War II oral history series of people we have interviewed over the past 20 years. The “Pineapple Kid” Joe Fiore picks up his second Purple Heart on Saipan. But he still cries 60 years later remembering his mother’s reaction to the news. Dan Lawler crosses an airstrip on Peleliu in 110 degree heat with foul water in his canteen. Jack Murray finds a Japanese gunner chained to his machine gun. Over the intercom, Andy Doty hears that FDR has died as his B-29 bomber guides towards the targets in Japan. Jimmy Butterfield tells his girlfriend to go away as he deals with the fact that his two head wounds on Okinawa have cost him his eyesight. But she marries him instead, and brings him to my classroom six decades later.
These were all hard books to write. And I will also pass on that Vol. 1 is for sale on for the ebook at Amazon right now, but ending soon, as about 2 AM tomorrow. But not to worry; you probably already have it! If you do, please leave me a review at the link(s) below if you have read it or any of my books—reviews help to bring new readers into the fold of this history which I am trying to resurrect and keep alive.
All the books are now available in HARDCOVER as well, for you purists out there! You can get a whole autographed set here at a discount, or individually at the Amazon link below. Paperback too, of course, and I will post about the audio editions in the near future.
THINK YOU KNOW about WWII?
VOL. 1 ON SALE for a few more hours JUST $1.99
“Mr. Rozell constructed the living memories of heroes of the Pacific War into a striking and amazing narrative.”
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07B4HL36P
Teaching History Matters 