Read more
Major George Eyster V comes from a family of military officers dating back to the Revolutionary War. His tour of duty in Iraq, however, left him disillusioned and questioning. Then he accepted a posting to J-PAC, an elite division whose mission is to fulfill the most solemn promise of the military code: bring all fallen soldiers home to the country for which they gave their lives. In 1944 Captain Ryan McCown, a dashing young Marine aviator assigned to the
USS Nassau, was shot down over the jungles of Papua, New Guinea. McCown's diaries and letters home provide a powerful portrait of the fears and sacrifices of a very different war--and the pathos of the ultimate cost of duty. Eyster's mission with J-PAC eventually took him and his team deep into the sweltering interior of New Guinea to at last deliver this fallen veteran to his loved ones--while perhaps also recovering something lost in himself.
About the author
Bryan Bender got his start in journalism as a writer for
Inside the Army and as a military correspondent for publications such as
Jane's Defense Weekly. He is the national security reporter for the
Boston Globe, a job for which he has traveled the globe covering operations at military outposts and training bases, aboard submarines and warships, and in combat aircraft over hostile territory.
