The time is November 1945, not long after Jack Elkins has returned from a prison camp in Japan to his hometown of Oakesdale, Washington. An autumn evening finds him before a gathering of townspeople clamoring to hear about his experiences. Jack is in turmoil. What they really want, he senses, is nice, neat stories of heroes who beat the odds. They want "blood without spatters" and death with dignity. What can he tell them? Burned forever in his mind are images of Japanese blood staining blue Manila Bay; of maggots assaulting the corpse of a buddy; of prisoner after prisoner relegated to small wooden boxes holding their cremated remains. Jack is unable to talk about what happened during his three years in Japanese prison camps. "There is no middle ground," in his estimation. "You either tell them all or tell them nothing." Standing up to the microphone, he whispers barely ten words to the audience, then sits down--and tries for the next half-century to forget.

Author Bob Wodnik has masterfully compiled the stories of several World War II prisoners-of-war into a non-fiction historical work with the feel of a novel. Readers glimpse the unrelenting physical agony and mental anguish of these young heroes as they struggle for survival, and then, following years of captivity, make the difficult and awkward return to civilization. Intertwined throughout these gripping descriptions are letters hoarded by a quiet night clerk at the seedy Strand Hotel in Everett, Washington, that supply a counterpoint of hometown life back in the states. The patriotism, the rationing, the blackouts, and the missing loved ones all indelibly altered those left stateside, and provide insight into a generation of Americans.