"In 1945, a G.I. mailed home a Japanese flag. Fifty years later, his daughter unfolds the past.
"When Louise Steinman was growing up, her father never talked about his experiences in the Pacific during WWII. All she knew was that Asian food was banned from the house and that she was never to cry in front of him. years later, she made a chance discovery. Hidden among her late parents' belongings was an old ammunition bos; inside were almost five hundred letters her father had written to herm other during the war and a silk Japanese flag inscribed in elegant calligraphy, 'To Yoshio Shimizu given to him in the Greater East Asia War to be fought to the end. If you believe in it, you win.' Who was Yoshio Shimizu, and why did her father have his flag?
"The Souvenir is Steinman's quest to find out what happened to her father, the men he fought with, and the men he fought against...From her conversations with veterans on both sides of the war, she comes to appreciate the life of a soldier and discovers, through her father's letters, the man she never knew--one who was brave, passionate, and scared. And, astonishingly, she develops a kinship with the surviving family of his enemy.
"Weaving together her father's raw, poignant letters with her own journey, Steinman presents a powerful view of how war changed one generation and shaped another." --from the publisher
"A powerful and enduring work of fiction about men and war. They carried malaria tablets, love letters, 28-pound mine detectors, dope, illustrated Bibles, each other. And if they made it home alive, they carried unrelenting images of a nightmarish war that history is only beginning to absorb.
"Since its first publication, The Things They Carried has become an unparalleled Vietnam testament, a classic work of American literature, and a profound study of men at war that illuminates the capacity, and the limits, of the human heart and soul."
--from the publisher
