Final Salute - by Jim Sheeler (Paperback)

About the Book

Based on Sheeler's Pulitzer Prize-winning story, "Final Salute" is a stunning tribute to the brave troops who have lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to the families who continue to mourn them.

Book Synopsis

They are the troops that nobody wants to see, carrying a message that no military family ever wants to hear. Since the start of the war in Iraq, Marines like Major Steve Beck found themselves charged with a mission they never asked for and one for which there can be no training: casualty notification. In Final Salute, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jim Sheeler weaves together the stories of the fallen, the broken homes they have left behind, and one man's effort to help heal the wounds of those left grieving. But it is not a book about war, politics, or liberal vs. conservative. Achingly beautiful and honest, it is a book that every American-every human-can embrace.

Review Quotes

" One of the great underreported stories of the Iraq war."
-Janet Maslin, The New York Times

" A must-read account."
-The Wall Street Journal

" A powerful counterpoint to the impersonal statistics and verbal camouflage of military euphemisms that sanitize the true horror of war and dehumanize those who serve."
-The Washington Post Book World

About the Author

Jim Sheeler is the Shirley Wormser Professor of Journalism and Media Writing at Case Western Reserve University. He is the author of a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper feature on the war in Iraq that led to a book, Final Salute, which was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award in nonfiction.