Review: Heartbreaking, yet uplifting
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 06 16, 2014
The story of Eddie Livingston is truly a heart-breaking story of abandonment and rejection. Eddie Livingston was a hero of the “Greatest Generation,” as Brokaw called it, and the continual abuse and neglect from the country he loved so dearly is a dark stain on the United States. While his story is sad, it is also uplifting, as he never gave up his fight to get what he had earned, and what he felt every veteran had earned. He also fought to bring that same equal treatment to all Americans in the Civil Rights Movement.My reading of this book also happened to coincide with the current debacle at the V.A., and it is apt that Eddie’s story come to light right now. However, it is most disturbing that the situation seems to have hardly improved since Eddie’s time until now. Eddie waited 17 years before even receiving acknowledgement of his rights to his earned benefits, and I couldn’t imagine another veteran ever having to go through something like that again. Eddie’s messages and pleas largely fell on deaf ears, but while we can’t correct the wrongs done to him, we can make sure those same wrongs are never committed again.The book itself is a collection of typed letters from Eddie to various people, mostly V.A. bureaucrats or high-ranking government officials, carrying his plea for equal treatment of veterans and African-Americans as human beings. The author transcribes the letters for legibility, and commentary is provided to put things into the context of Eddie’s life, the period in which he was living, and brings it into the context of the present. With Eddie never being truly formally educated, the letters are, more often than not, raw, powerful, emotional, and basic in a way that only a plea for righting a wrong can be. These were the words of a man pouring his heart and soul onto paper.The story of Eddie Livingston was one that needed to be told the way Eddie himself had told it, raw, unfiltered, and unadulterated. This book does just that. I can’t wait to recommend it.