Review— The New York Review of Books
Volume 54, Number 6 -- April 12, 2007
Justice for Warriors
by Taylor Branch
The Bonus Army: An American Epic
by Paul Dickson and Thomas B. Allen
Walker, 370 pp., $13.95 (paper)
Soldiers to Citizens: The G.I. Bill and the Making of the Greatest Generation
by Suzanne Mettler
Oxford University Press, 252 pp., $30.00
Over Here: How the G.I. Bill Transformed the American Dream
by Edward Humes
Harcourt, 319 pp., $26.00
What does it mean to be a soldier of freedom? Is patriotism in a republic to be measured with blood or money? Does a military chain of command transmit democratic values? Americans have lionized, scorned, and patronized our own troops--often during the same war. Can soldiers and civilians truly look one another in the eye?