Richard Haddock

Closing the Circle Richard Haddock

Tommy Marshall was eighteen when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and he enlisted, anxious to seek revenge, but the Army assigned him to a finance job in London where he languished as others fought the enemy. A chance encounter with Eisenhower landed Tommy in a combat unit and he found himself amongst those storming Omaha Beach on D-Day. What Tommy witnessed would change him forever; the loss of comrades creating a killing frenzy and heroics that won him the Congressional Medal of Honor. After the war Tommy tried to fit back into an America that was distancing itself from the scars of war. He married, started a family and a career, and pursued his newly won American dream. But that dream ultimately became a nightmare as his wife and son died and his career ended in bitterness. Years later, when Tommy entered the old soldier's home in Washington, D. C., he was resolved to spend his final years as a recluse. But when he returned to France for the 50th anniversary of D-Day, his perspective changed when he found the graves of his wartime buddies in Normandy and challenged himself to enjoy a life they had been denied. This is a story of the hope and promise wrought from war, of how its lessons changed those who fought it, and how a younger generation has much to learn from those who sacrificed for our prosperity and freedom.