Fading Voices and Haunting Memories: From the World War II Era

Rating:
Summary: New Perspective to WWII
Review: Fading Voices and Haunting Memories, by Gloria Miller, provided me a completely different view of WWII. I have always been a fan of history, especially that of American history, and great American battles. However, out of the knowledge that I have received from school, never has this approach been introduced. Gloria Miller tells the story of a "middle-American" poor, farm girl from rural Ohio and the effects the war had on her and the people closest to her. Instead of approaching WWII in a manner that we have all heard before, she sees the war from her own eyes, as a naive young woman, whose decisions and actions revolve around this great but horrible time. After reading this book, I have a renwed appreciation for the American people, who banded together in times of dispair, and made the sacrifices that they did. Whether the sacrifices were risking thier lives, or sending mail, America pulled together, and that alone defines greatness.

Rating:
Summary: Honoring our vets
Review: Fading Voices was quite a volume from a new author and I heartily recommend it to those who are interested in the personal stories behind WW II. As those who lived through WWII are fading it is an important collection of their voices and well written. It's a reminder of the heroism exhibited by regular people in extraordinary times and it is good to keep that heroism in mind during our present times.

Rating:
Summary: Honoring our vets
Review: Fading Voices was quite a volume from a new author and I heartily recommend it to those who are interested in the personal stories behind WW II. As those who lived through WWII are fading it is an important collection of their voices and well written. It's a reminder of the heroism exhibited by regular people in extraordinary times and it is good to keep that heroism in mind during our present times.

Rating:
Summary: Unknown Sacrifices
Review: It is hard to believe since the time of World War II that any more emotions could be brought forth by another book. But Gloria Miler's book "Fading Voices and Haunting Memories" does exactly that. This book brings out more than the sacrifices of our soliders, it identifies in heart-felt detail, what was endured by the men and women who supported them from these lands. This book provided me a different view and a better appreciation of World War II.

Rating:
Summary: Unknown Sacrifices
Review: It is hard to believe since the time of World War II that any more emotions could be brought forth by another book. But Gloria Miler's book "Fading Voices and Haunting Memories" does exactly that. This book brings out more than the sacrifices of our soliders, it identifies in heart-felt detail, what was endured by the men and women who supported them from these lands. This book provided me a different view and a better appreciation of World War II.

Rating:
Summary: A War Bride's Story
Review: This is a well done and uniquely interesting effort by Author Miller, relating her personal story of living through World War II as a war bride, along with the stories and war-time histories of a disparate group of individuals from around her home town of Lima, Ohio. The author has woven together brief chronologies of the events of WWII, as they occurred, interspersed with the individual stories of refugees, veterans, family members and soldiers as they fit into the chronology. These individual narrations are primarily recent, having been done in interviews with the author in the years just preceding this book. This effort is not about the details of battles won and lost so much at it is a very revealing look at the way people adjusted to the challenges of separation, rationing, uncertainty and danger as the war progressed. The personal memoirs provide unusual clarity into the way Americans faced the unknowable and unpredictable as they searched for normality in what was a far from normal time and circumstance. The author tells in significant detail of how she is courted, married and able to transition from her very sheltered life on an Ohio farm to complete independence while her husband is overseas. His story compliments hers as he describes his life in the Pacific theater as a radar technician. What this book does better than most is to put perspective into the lives of "ordinary" people when confronted with the extraordinary times of a world war, and it will make good reading for those interested in WWII history.