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The dramatic story of West Point's class of 2002, the first in a generation to graduate during wartime.
They had joined an army at peace, but in their time at the United
States Military Academy the world around them changed forever. Just
after the cadets in West Point's bicentennial class began their
senior year, terrorists attacked America. The following June, when
President George W. Bush spoke at their graduation and declared that
the United States would “take the battle to the enemy,” the
men and women of the class of 2002 knew they would be fighting on the
front lines. In this stirring account of the five years following their
graduation, the Army's newest, youngest officers lead their
soldiers into harm's way and experience both the rewards and the
costs of answering their country's call.
In a Time of War tells the story of the soldiers and their families who have proudly served and sacrificed so much, among them:
• Todd Bryant, the rowdy, funny Californian who follows his
parents and siblings into the armed forces, but who longs for the young
wife he left behind;
• Drew Sloan, the studious son of liberal parents from Arkansas
who chooses West Point, the infantry, and Ranger School and finds
purpose on the arid plains of Afghanistan and in the urban battles of
Iraq;
• Tricia LeRoux Birdsell, the high-spirited athlete who follows
her mother into the military, serves with her infantry officer husband
in Iraq, and searches diligently to discover her calling in the Army;
• Tim Moshier, the gentle giant, consummate team player, and
natural Apache helicopter pilot who leaves his wife and baby daughter
behind to help patrol the skies over Baghdad; and
• Will Tucker, the taciturn, tough, and intelligent Alabama native
who becomes a courageous armor officer and fights again and again to
win battles in Iraq and to find his way home to the wife and child he
loves.
Meticulously reported, sweeping in scope, Bill Murphy Jr.'s
powerful book follows these brave and idealistic officers—and
their classmates and families—through more than five years of
war. Vivid, inspiring, and sometimes heartbreaking, In a Time of War is
a story about courage, honor, and what war really means to the men and
women whose lives it defines.
pub date: 2008-09-16 | hardcover | 9780805086799 |
