"A ... history of ordinary soldiers struggling on the front lines, [this book] offers a ... new perspective on the Second World War ... [delving] deep into army archives, personal diaries, court-martial records, and self-published memoirs to produce this ... portrait of men overlooked by their commanders and ignored by history"--Dust jacket flap.

On the brink of World War II, a family is forced out of their London home and into the countryside. Wolfie and his older sister Dodo are devastated to leave behind everything they've ever known, but they slowly settle into their new life. One day they come across an orphaned foal, which they raise as Hero, a strong and beautiful horse who lives up to his name when he saves the children from a fire. Wolfie and Dodo find comfort in their new life, but...

Army deserter Bart Laish is on the run and out for himself - until he figures his best escape is to hook up with a wagon train headed for Oregon. Fate gives him an opportunity: He assumes the identity of a dead friend, a major mortally wounded in a brutal Indian attack, and takes charge of the troopers escorting the besieged caravan.

Diego 'Macho' Callahan, a man tricked into enlisting in the Confederate army, is later thrown into a hellish stockade on desertion charges. He eventually breaks out of the prison camp and sets out to kill Duffy, the man in yellow boots who bamboozled him into signing enlistment papers. However, after accidentally killing a Confederate officer, he finds himself pursued by a gang of vicious bounty hunters intent on collecting the reward put up by the...

As World War II ends, some African-American soldiers refuse to abandon northern Italy to return to the United States, due to the racial intolerance there, deserting instead.

"In the United States, the Iraq war has become an incredibly divisive and destructive issue. Many citizens, even former American veterans, support our troops, but strongly oppose the actions of the U.S. government. The Bush administrations' failure to provide evidence of weapons of mass destruction, their failure to support claims of a rogue nuclear program, their inability to provide links between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's government, their unilateral...