history – Kris Charles

Long ago, back in 2000, I wrote a short story based upon a choice my maternal Grandfather made.

He was 25 and when Pearl Harbor happened he had a choice to join the war to escape the Kentucky coal mines. Go to war, or continue in the mines, where he also did the accounting.

So my grandfather choose to join the war, leaving his dog behind, a dog that waited for him at that corner of the property until he passed away, waiting for my grandfather to come home from war. But not everything of my grandfather made it back. He stopped believing there was a God the day he and the rest of the troops entered the concentration camps. His faith was killed seeing the evil and depravity of humanity.

When he passed away in 1999 we found more details out about his service, he got 5 Bronze stars, he was at the Battle of the Bulge, D-Day, and so many other major battles. He left the Army in 1945 Sgt. Ross J. Kitchen.

I am taking that short story and creating a novel. Though my grandfather is the inspiration, this is a work of fiction.

War: The Death of Faith

I didn’t know at the time; but when I made my choice of the coal mines or the Army, I traded one death for another. The world was at War, and I choose the Army. I said goodbye to my family, signed my father as my next of kin and I left. February 10^th 1942, should have been a date of death on my stone.

This novel is going to follow the story of a young man who makes the choice to join the Army after Peral Harbor and will follow him through the war, to the discovery of the concentration camps, to coming home, and to making a life outside of the horrors he discovered about humanity.

Waterloo, IA

Publisher’s Note

All rights reserved as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976. No portion of this book may be reproduced by any means, mechanical, electronic, or otherwise, without first obtaining the permission of the copyright holder.

This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to persons living or dead (unless explicitly noted) is merely coincidental.