Appointment at Ie Shima

Book excerpt: "On April 18, 1945, during the battle for Okinawa, famed journalist Ernie Pyle died from shots to the head fired by a Japanese gunner. He had returned to the field of combat seemingly out of a sense of duty to the "good boys"-- the young soldiers whose lives he had so beautifully captured, and who had catapulted him to fame as America's most beloved journalist. In this poignant study, Bill Nelson combines Pyle's columns and corespondence with recent medical research to argue that Pyle suffered from an unrecognized PTSD following an American bombing that went wrong on D-Day. Shortly after that traumatic experience, Pyle announced he could no longer endure the slaughter of war and went home, and yet soon found himself in the Pacific, on the tiny island called Ie Shima, for his final rendezvous" -- page 4 of cover.