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Title details for You Are Not Forgotten by Bryan Bender - Available

You Are Not Forgotten

The Story of a Lost World War II Pilot and a Twenty-First-Century Soldier's Mission to Bring Him Home

by Bryan Bender
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An inspiring and epic tale of loss and redemption about two American servicemen: a Marine Corps pilot who was shot down in WWII and the modern-day soldier determined to bring home his remains six decades later

Major George Eyster V comes from a long line of military officers, dating back to the Revolutionary War. Army service was George's family legacy, but his tour of duty in Iraq left him disillusioned and questioning. He was making plans to end his army career but was offered a posting to J-PAC, an elite division armed with the latest detection and forensic technology. J-PAC's sole mission is to fulfill a solemn promise at the heart of the military code: bring all fallen soldiers home to the country for which they gave their lives.

In 1944 Captain Ryan McCown, a dashing young Marine aviator assigned to the USS Nassau, was shot down over the jungles of Papua, New Guinea. McCown's diaries and letters home to his family and fiancée provide a moving, powerful portrait of the fears and costs of a very different war and underscore the pathos of the ultimate cost of duty.

Eyster's mission with J-PAC eventually took him and his team deep into the sweltering interior of New Guinea in search of McCown's remains. It would be a fraught mission, complete with tropical diseases and black magic, at the end of which Eyster would not only repatriate a fallen veteran and fulfill a promise to deliver him to his loved ones but would also uncover something lost in himself-a sense of purpose in a promise between soldiers that is still worth fighting for.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    May 14, 2013

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9780385535182

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9780385535182
      • File size: 8633 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Kirkus

      Starred review from October 1, 2013
      The journalist's reporting is impressive, but the storytelling is what distinguishes this account of identifying the remains of military casualties decades after they died in war. As national security reporter for the Boston Globe, Bender has covered recent conflicts in the Middle East and Asia. Here, the author tells the parallel stories of two young military men, separated by half a century but intertwined with the narrative momentum of a compelling mystery and the depth of character of a rich novel. Ryan McCown was a World War II Marine pilot, an archetypal Southern gentleman from Charleston, S.C. When he and others failed to return from a mission, his fate was unknown; he was presumed dead, though there was talk that he was missing or had been taken prisoner. Flash forward to the late 20th century, and McCown's story alternates with that of George Eyster V, the only son in a family with a long military legacy but felt unsuited to follow, who preferred to exert himself as a lacrosse star and go drinking with his buddies afterward: "There were too many things about the Army he found unappealing--the rootless existence, the need to constantly follow orders and bow to authority, and, yes, the prospect of real danger. It was an honorable calling, he knew, just not for him." The author humanizes the stories of both men, putting them in the context of their families, their romances, the novels they read and the poetry they wrote. Ultimately, Eyster resolved his ambivalence about the military through a mandate that involved using advances in forensic science to identify the remains of soldiers from battles before he was born and to bring them home. Instead of being "prepared to inflict as much damage as possible on America's enemies," he could help with "putting things back together again." Any reader who wonders about the significance of such a mission will have no reservations by the end of this well-structured, well-written book.

      COPYRIGHT(2013) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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