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MWSA Review
Even as our world changes, so many things stay the same. Today’s soldiers from the Iraq and Afghan wars are dealing with the same struggles as those who made it back from Vietnam. Post-traumatic stress, nightmares, and relationship troubles plague both generations. And the effects reach beyond the foreign battlefields.
Angie is unfortunate to have to wait on her son’s return from Afghanistan as she did so many years ago on her husband’s return from Vietnam. The endless waiting—desperate for, but also fearful of, information about loved ones serving their country.
Told from various points of view, the descriptions are vivid enough to make those who have not seen combat grateful to those who have fought for our freedom. For those who have struggled with these same situations, Gary DeRigne lets you know you aren’t alone. Writing as a combat veteran, DeRigne tells the story so many try to avoid—war has a price. Through power imagery and poignant characterization, Angie’s War paints the all-too-familiar picture of a nation locked in violent combat, and how it affects the individual at home and abroad.
Veterans find solace in reconnecting and talking with others who have been through what they have experienced. A different war but similar experiences draw these soldiers together to find community and, eventually, healing.
Review by Dawn Brotherton (March 2020)
Author's Synopsis
Angie's War is the story of Mick Delaney, a young American soldier fighting in Vietnam, his best friend Tony Giles, who fights alongside him, and Tony's wife Angie, who waits and worries at home through his year-long deployment. One day Tony receives a letter from Angie that distracts him from the razor-sharp concentration he needs to do his job as an infantry point man... and the world is changed for the three of them, and everyone they touch, forever.
In Angie's War, author Gary DeRigne tells a gripping tale of love and loss, fear and courage, desperation and hope, that begins in the jungles of Vietnam and extends through the battlefields of Somalia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. All the while, through generation after generation, loved ones at home wait, and worry, and pray, in an America that has become callous to the human cost of war.
ISBN/ASIN: 978-1-947309-78-4, B07SYBSV81
Book Format(s): Soft cover, Kindle
Review Genre: Fiction—Historical Fiction
Number of Pages: 383