It's Yom Kippur Eve in 1973, and twelve-year-old Beni thinks his biggest problem is settling in at his new school in the Golan, where his family moved at the end of the Six-Day War. But on Yom Kippur, shocking news comes over the radio: a stunning strike on Israel has begun, led by a coalition of Arab states. In the blink of an eye, Beni's older brother Motti is off to war, leaving Beni behind with his mother and father. As bombs drop around Beni and his family, they flee to safety, every day hoping for news of Motti and the developments of the war. Beni must find a way to aid the war effort in his own way, proving that he too can be a hero, even as he learns along the way that there is dignity in every person, including the people he considers the enemy.

Twelve-year-old Motti discovers that there are many types of heroes as his tiny young nation of Israel fights for survival in the Six-Day War of 1967.

With her mother stationed in Iraq as an Army nurse, Vanderbilt University student Arden Vogel, whose father was killed in a traffic accident a few years earlier, impulsively ends up on a tour of Europe with a group of college girls she meets on her way to attend to some family business in Sardinia.

A US marine sent to the Congo by the Pentagon to be part of a team of military instructors selected to train a battalion of Congolese Special Forces boarded a UN plane in Goma. He was travelling to the training center in the city of Kisangani, in the DR Congo. However, the aircraft crashes in the middle of the jungle. The crew perishes in the accident. The Marine and other passengers survive, only to be attacked and captured by merciless Simba militiamen. However, the Marine, a captain who had fought in Iraq and Somalia, succeeds in subduing their captors, helped by a CIA agent who was a former Marine, a Congolese army lieutenant, and a child-soldier. They escape through the Congolese jungle until they reach the city of Beni. The previous night, the city had been devastated by ferocious rebels who abducted an American missionary. The Marines team up with valiant Congolese soldiers, pursue the rebels, and uncover "blood gold" transactions linked to money-laundering by Islamist terrorists' partners based in Kampala and Nairobi. The Marines and the Congolese soldiers engage in a breathtaking battle against Ugandan Special forces in the town of Mutwanga in the Beni terrtory. They overwhelm their foes and expose the involvement of some rogue Congolese and Ugandan top army officers in these "blood gold" deadly dealings. The Congolese government has to make a bold decision...

Almost forgotten in the haze of events following Nagasaki and Hiroshima, the summer of 1945 witnessed an intense public debate over how best to end the war against Japan. Weary of fighting, the American people were determined to defeat the imperial power that had so viciously attacked them in December 1941, but they were uncertain of the best means to accomplish this goal. Certain of victory - the "inevitable triumph" promised by Franklin Roosevelt immediately after Pearl Harbor - Americans became increasingly concerned about the human cost of defeating Japan. Particularly after the brutal Iwo Jima and Okinawa campaigns, syndicated columnists, newspaper editorialists, radio commentators, and others questioned the necessity of invasion. A lengthy naval and aerial siege would have saved lives but might have protracted the war beyond the public's patience. Advertisers filled the media with visions of postwar affluence even as the government was exhorting its citizens to remain dedicated to the war effort. There was heated discussion as well about the morality of firebombing Japanese cities and of using poison gas and other agents of chemical warfare. Chappell provides a balanced assessment of all these debates, grounding his observations in a wealth of primary sources. He also discusses the role of racism, the demand for unconditional surrender, and the government's reaction to public opinion in the decision to drop the atomic bomb. Compelling and controversial, this is the first work to examine the confusing and contradictory climate of the American home front in the months leading up to V-J Day.