"e;This is the remarkable story of my father, Herbert Henry Miller, who was drafted into the army in August 1942."e; So begins this book about an ordinary man thrust into extraordinary circumstances during World War II. The writer is Herbert Miller's son, Robert, who was amazed to discover his father's Red Cross war diary at the back of a drawer in the weeks following his 1994 death. The diary had been created by the YMCA and distributed through the Red Cross to all American POWs as they were entering prisoner of war camps. Many soldiers, understandably, threw them away. But Herbert Miller chose to keep his. The diary was crammed full of his dreams for survival and of the death and destruction he had witnessed as a soldier and a POW. Along with the text, he had scribbled some drawings to help him capture his true feelings. The diary also included a photo of Heinz, the principled Nazi guard who formed a close bond with Herbert and eased his cruel existence in the hellhole known as Stalag VIIA. Finding his father's journal became the catalyst for Robert Miller to learn more about his father and about his father's war. He spent hours interviewing his mother, the only person who knew of her husband's nightmares and understood that he suffered from life-long post-traumatic stress disorder. Robert also traveled throughout Europe and America interviewing World War II survivors and their families and digging into archives. The final result of his three years of intensive research is this gripping and heartrending story that sheds needed light on issues that remain at the forefront of our public discourse today: the torture and treatment of POWS and the high psychological cost to individual soldiers of going to war.
