Dad's War with the
United States Marines
by Peter H. Green
6"x 9", xxi+280, illustrated
Trade Paper: ISBN 1-59663-501-0 $19.95
SPECIAL PRICE: $14.95

Here is a new kind of World War II memoir— a family narrative that relates the exploits of a low-ranking but resourceful nonconformist whose talents were lost on the military bureaucracy. In the spring of 1944 Ben Green enlisted in the Marine Corps with the intent of assisting the war effort as an officer in combat intelligence. He was 35 years old and left behind a wife and two small children. The vagaries of war, however, did not result in his anticipated officer training. Instead, Ben Green found himself training in the Marine infantry along with tough, angry kids, half his age.

Back home, Ben's family coped with economics, emotional stress, and fear of the unthinkable as they waited in terror for the news of Ben’s assignment to the next island invasion. But, a half-a-world away, like Luther Billis in Michener’s Tales of the South Pacific, Ben used his maturity and experience to adapt to both the absurdities and opportunities of military life. He learned how to work the “system”—to save his skin for his family’s sake—and to eke meaningful service to his country out of his chaotic situation. It is a story that, like war itself, reveals both the universal and the intensely person elements of survival, love, and sacrifice while serving self, family, and country in ways and circumstances that none involved had ever dreamed possible.

This book is a chronicle of discovery in the World War II experiences of Ben Green,  but creating it was also a journey of discovery for the author, Through the experience of writing and researching this book, Ben’s son learned that a father he had respected but never fully understood, nor knew how to love, had, indeed, been his mentor and his best friend. Based on the letters and writings of the author’s parents, two talented journalists who wrote each other daily, as filtered through his own family experience, this narrative describes one family’s struggle when swept along in the tides of the world’s biggest war. The book is further documented by his mother’s biographical script for a 48th “This Is Your Life” surprise birthday party for Ben. Also included are six humorous, short sketches, worthy of Mac Hyman’s No Time for Sergeants, entitled, My War with the United States Marines, that Ben Green wrote and presented to the Chicago Literary Club in 1965. It is also viewed, first by the author as a six-year-old, and then from his contemporary perspective as a survivor of the mayhem. The book is illustrated with Ben’s own drawings, included in his letters home.

See the author's web site at: www.peterhgreen.com/dadswar

Click Here to Read A Review of "Dad's War" in the Small Press Book Watch

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: A writer, architect and city planner, Peter Green found his father’s 400 World War II letters, his humorous war stories, his mother’s writings and their family’s often hilarious doings too good a tale to keep to himself, so he launched a second career as a writer. After years of proposal writing for his design firms, he went back to Washington University to study creative writing, with such published authors as Catherine Rankovic, Robert Earleywine and Rick Skwiot He is currently tackling the mystery genre as he continues to introduce new readers to the often hilarious antics and serious achievements of his dad’s World War II adventure. He is currently completing his first novel, "Crimes of Design," a Patrick MacKenna mystery, an intrigue of murder and sabotage set in St. Louis during the highest flood of record. He lives in St. Louis with his wife Connie, has two married daughters and three grandchildren,