Julia Collins
My Father's War

"Collins offers a darker take on the Greatest Generation as she relates the homefront consequences of her father's combat experiences in the Pacific.… A useful reminder that even good wars yield woeful results." —Kirkus Reviews

As the United States finds itself in the grips of a war against terrorism, we face the fearful possibility of sending still more Americans overseas into foreign and hostile lands. In My Father's War, a memoir by Julia Collins, she shares her father's World War II experience and the tumultuous years after, touching on issues relevant in any conflict, including the inevitable atrocities and their long-term effects on the "lucky" survivors.

Jerry Collins began confiding in his daughter about his war experience well before she began grammar school in their coastal Connecticut hometown. Drawing on her recollections and a suitcase she found full of his old letters and photographs, she pieces together his experience during the war (from Parris Island and Guadalcanal to the beaches of Okinawa and the taking of Sugar Loaf Hill), his return home, and his subsequent descent into alcoholism and womanizing, underemployment and near poverty — offering a new perspective on the men of "the greatest generation."

She lays bare the pain and frustration, the failure and disappointment that marked her father's life. Jerry never kept a job for long, despite his Yale education and big dreams, and he was as unsuccessful at home. His marriage ended in divorce, although the ex-husband and wife continued to share an uneasy coexistence in the same house. His ex-wife turned to alcohol, spending time in and out of rehab, and the five children suffered indignities and insults large and small at the hands of both of their parents.

In these hawkish times of renewed U.S. pride and military might, Collins's story is, at best, a frightening reality check and, at worst, a dire warning. She reminds us of humanity's fragility and the extent of the personal sacrifice that we may face by defending our liberty. Julia Collins has written for various magazines and newspapers. She lives in Somerville, Massachusetts.

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