Confession time - GsGf hardly has time for fakebelieve lit - Wizards, Hoboes and Orcs - whee - so what?
To be fair - some of the make it up as you go chiz hath merit - 007 stuff, the Dorian Gray tale, Animal Farm and Taming American Power can certainly serve to fire up the neurons und nuetrik, and help develop memes and counter memes to boring assetted incorrect handwringing and general doofusness in general or avalanching uber hot brainiac bona fides.
And then Nate Brookshire sent me an autographed copy of Hidden Wounds: A Soldier's Burden.
It's essential reading and ya need to put it on your must read list TODAY
Nate and Marius Tecoana deliver a power dual tale that highlights combat's post trauma syndrone in a way that is compelling and haunting.
Modern day - an ancient Army combat veteran of WWII in Europa, Korea and Viet Namn struggles with more than the VA and his dearest son's repeated deployments in the new millennium - John Dougall keeps a horrific secret sin close to his heart that ravages his mind and body far more than the three predators of time, old wounds and old age.
Flashback to NSDAP time Deutschland's wild wack Drang Nach Osten - the Russian Ost Front campaign - sliding through the ice covered steppe roads into the fir forests, vertical cliffs and snowcapped Elbrus of the Caucasas a crew of knight errants onboard a panzer IV fight their way into Nalchik.
Led by young Rudi Haas, the intrepid panzerwaffe crew survive the double Soviet encirclement of Stalingrad, literally walking out just in time to re sortee into battle with mad ad hoc desperate kampf gruppen to desperately try to stymie the Russian juggernaut and fight at mythical Prokhorovka. Xferred from one end of Das Dritten Reich's shrink shrink shrinking battle frontiers of the East to Westfront.
The Epic Fail of the Ardennes Offensive left Rudi with a massive wartime journal/diary with the love and lives of his comrades and his sweetheart Carla - a Wehrmacht nurse whose overran unit fell into Bolshevik clutches.
As 3rd Reich dies kicking and screaming in an orgy of blood, pulverized cities and organized violence on a Hitlerian scale, Rudi leads his men in their last mission - to surrender to Patton's 3rd Army. Expecting captivity, interrogation and ultimate release, instead they are machine gunned down in murderous cold blood by the older squad mates of a young PVT John Dougall.
Killing surrendering combatants is unthinkable - shocking that American GI's - who knew Victory was nigh - would commit such atrocities.
Leading the reader on a time scape of six decades, the journal surfaces again and again - taken as booty by PVT Dougall - it's soul crushing weight finally grants him one last chance for redemption and forgiveness.
World Famous Carl Prine thinks out loud about "Hidden Wounds: A Soldier's Burden" this way:
"A timeless study of pain, loss and regret, readers should think of it as a testament to an American military suffering through nearly a decade at war. There's an abiding decency to this novel, animated by the authors' shared strength of character and commitment to help others."
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