Generationally-Based Fall 1999

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Hell, Healing and Resistance: Veterans Speak,
by Daniel Hallock
(Plough Publishing, 1998)
409 pp., $25.00

Seldom does a piece of writing knock me down, but the opening chapter of Daniel Hallock's Hell Healing and Resistance did just that, bringing me face to face with war's brutality just as effectively as the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan. When Tom Hanks was questioned about that movie's patriotism he replied, "Saving Private Ryan is patriotic like Memorial Day, not like the Fourth of July." Similarly, Hallock's compilation of combat veterans' personal experiences of war is at once anti-war and pro-veteran.

Reading Hallock's book was not easy. It was at first shocking, then compelling, and ultimately life-changing. Veterans themselves relate in frank and often crude language their horror tales, which are sometimes horrendous, often inspiring, and always gripping. The veterans chronicle the United States involvement in World Wars I and II, Vietnam, and the Persian Gulf from the perspective of ordinary soldiers forever changed by a brutal military system. Hallock offers an insider's view of the military, from its enticement of boys and girls as young as fourteen into Junior rotc programs, to its neglect of veterans scarred by their combat experiences. This sobering book is not for the faint of heart, but then again, neither is war.Hallock's breadth of approach is noteworthy. He includes male and female veterans of nearly every U.S. conflict in this century and from various religious and racial backgrounds. He vividly recounts the atrocities faced by non-veterans who, as conscientious objectors, openly opposed the military during World War I. Hallock makes a strong case for the link between our materialistic society ...

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