When Heroes in Our Midst was published in 2016, I thought I had accomplished what I had set out to do-tell the stories of western Oklahoma veterans. However, not long after the book became available, people started coming to me and asking why I had not included certain veterans. The real reason was that they had not made their way to me through the word-of-mouth grapevine because that is the way I have found veterans willing to tell their stories. Other people realized that they too would like for their family members to be included in an anthology. So I gathered my notebooks, my camera, and my portable scanner and began again seeking out veterans and writing their stories. While this volume follows the same format as Heroes in Our Midst, without intentionally trying, I began to see a wider variety of military specialties, a trend in family service, and a greater number of world conditions under which the veterans served.
First of all, often when people think of a soldier, they see a man in a combat uniform toting a rifle. While that is an accurate picture of many veterans, the truth is that the U. S. military is made up of thousands of specialties. This volume includes a diverse group of veterans who served in numerous capacities. Readers will learn about veterans who served on submarines, refueled bombers in the air, ran drug interdictions, worked as a chaplain's assistant, operated a teletype machine, participated in search and rescue after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, worked as a lighthouse keeper, participated in humanitarian efforts after hurricanes, and of course, hiked through the jungles of Vietnam as a regular infantry "grunt." Readers will also learn about a young woman who serves as an Army doctor.
Second, while working on this book, I saw many veterans who had followed in the footsteps of a parent, a grandparent, a spouse, or a sibling. This book contains several stories where service to country is a valued family tradition. A sense of duty and patriotism often runs through families who serve in the military. In fact, this book contains the stories of three married couples who both chose military service.
Finally, the conditions under which the veterans served vary widely. Included in this anthology is even the story of a World War I veteran, his story gleaned from family memories and documents he left behind. This book contains fewer World War II veterans' stories than Heroes in Our Midst did simply because, sadly, many of those veterans have passed on; however, many Vietnam veterans were willing to tell their stories after years of silence. This volume also contains stories of veterans of both Iraq wars and the war in Afghanistan. In addition, some veterans served in peacetime but under the very real threat of the Cold War. Other peacetime veterans helped alleviate suffering caused by natural disasters.
The documentation style used in this book is the MLA (Modern Language Association) style. The pictures included with the veterans' stories in this volume are compliments of the veterans or their families unless otherwise noted. The photos of the veterans' memorials in western Oklahoma were taken by Doug Haught.
It is my hope that upon delving into the stories of our Oklahoma veterans that readers will come away with a sense of appreciation for and gratitude to the many men and women who have given a part of themselves for the benefit of the United States of America and its citizens.
