War Stories

These three books are stories of the United States at war. Two of them deal with World War II, the third is about the Vietnam war. All three are stories of minority groups doing military service.

Eyes of the Emperor by Graham Salisbury
After Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, Japanese-Americans enlisted and were drafted like all other young men in the United States. The country was at war, and they were Americans. But many people suspected their loyalty. On the mainland United States, many Japanese-Americans were moved from their homes to internment camps. Eyes of the Emperor is based on the true story of a group of soldiers from Hawaii. The Japanese-Americans among them faced discrimination in many forms. Finally, with President Roosevelt’s approval, they were singled out for special duty – they were used as bait to train attack dogs.

Code Talker by Joseph Bruchac
The Navajo Code Talkers were unsung heroes of WWII. Their fluency in both English and Navajo made them vital to the war effort. These marines were in the front lines in all the major battles in the Pacific theater, transmitting coded messages in the Navajo language. When they returned home, they had to keep their activities a secret, and for more than 20 years, nobody outside the service knew the important part they had played. As children, all of these men had been forced to attend government boarding schools, where they were taught that their traditional ways were worthless, and they were prohibited from speaking their native language. But when the country was at war, the government asked the Navajo to use their language to save American lives

Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
In 1967, the United States was deeply involved in the Vietnam War. Fallen Angels is the story of a young, black soldier from Harlem serving in a combat unit. Unable to afford college, he had volunteered for the army right after high school, and had no idea of the horrors he and his unit would face in combat. He questions how he and so many other black soldiers end up in combat units in the most dangerous places, and questions why they are there, coming to doubt the morality of the war. He encounters officers who are willing to sacrifice men so they can get ahead, as well as prejudice, in addition to the dangers of the front line.