Review: A Poignant Wartime Love Story
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 07 17, 2012
Reading this story is like finding a lost diary. The emotions are raw and honest and the descriptions of events take you back in time, in this case, to World War II. Craig Vetter's story of an all-too-brief love affair follows his parents from when they first fell in love, in Rio de Janeiro in 1940, to the horrible day his father died during the battle of Okinawa, just months before the war ended. Through the many wonderful letters quoted in this book, we get a vivid glimpse of real life during war: the day-to-day stress, fear, and homesickness that Vetter's father experienced as commander of a Navy battleship in the Pacific, the loneliness and uncertainty his mother faced on the homefront, where she gave birth to two children without her husband. Never knowing his father except in pictures, Vetter writes this story as a way to "get this guy out of uniform" and to find the man behind the hero. What he finds is a moody romantic much like himself who's utterly devoted to the smart, witty, and athletic wife he left behind. This is a moving tribute to both of Vetter's memorable parents, and it will leave a lump in your throat.