Book Feature: When Wars Were Won by Hugh Aaron
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Title:
WHEN WARS WERE WON
Author: Hugh Aaron
Publisher: Stones Point Press
Pages: 269
Genre: Fiction
Hal Arnold, a professor of
English, returns to the Philippines after forty years yearning for the unity, spirit and
optimism he knew as a 19- year-old member of a Seabee battalion in the South
Pacific theater during World War II. Trying to recapture that experience, he
writes this story, vividly portraying members of the battalion who impacted his
life. Searching for his own identity, he finds it in the warm, rich culture of
a small Filipino village where love and dignity thrive among a people who have
suffered under the Japanese yoke.
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EXCERPT
"But you love the hacienda so much," she protested, sitting up, yet holding onto my hand.
"I do. But I can't live in this country, not the way it is. Nothing has changed, no one is better off than they were forty years ago. Corruption and cronyism are the system. It's suffocating, don't you see? I miss the freedom, its very atmosphere. I hadn't realized how much. There's a vibrancy at home. It's part of me. So come home with me."
"At my age, leave the hacienda?" she said, waving her hand. "I would never adjust to a strange place. I couldn't die anywhere else."
"I understand," I said.
"When will you let me read your story?" she asked the night before I departed.
"I'll leave it with you and you can send it to me."
"Do you think it will be published?"
"Does it matter? I asked. "I wanted only to write it, nothing more."
Tomorrow Nina will drive me to Manila. Tomorrow I shall go home for the second time, feeling no less anxious than the first, when Fortune drove me to Subic Bay. Tomorrow will be our second good-bye, and our last. Tomorrow.
"But you love the hacienda so much," she protested, sitting up, yet holding onto my hand.
"I do. But I can't live in this country, not the way it is. Nothing has changed, no one is better off than they were forty years ago. Corruption and cronyism are the system. It's suffocating, don't you see? I miss the freedom, its very atmosphere. I hadn't realized how much. There's a vibrancy at home. It's part of me. So come home with me."
"At my age, leave the hacienda?" she said, waving her hand. "I would never adjust to a strange place. I couldn't die anywhere else."
"I understand," I said.
"When will you let me read your story?" she asked the night before I departed.
"I'll leave it with you and you can send it to me."
"Do you think it will be published?"
"Does it matter? I asked. "I wanted only to write it, nothing more."
Tomorrow Nina will drive me to Manila. Tomorrow I shall go home for the second time, feeling no less anxious than the first, when Fortune drove me to Subic Bay. Tomorrow will be our second good-bye, and our last. Tomorrow.
Hugh Aaron, born and raised in Worcester,
Massachusetts, was a Seabee in the South
Pacific during World War II. After the war he graduated from the University
of Chicago where his professors
encouraged him to pursue a literary career. However, he made his living as CEO
of his own manufacturing business while continuing to write. He sold the
company in 1985 to write full time. To date he has written two novels, a travel
journal, a short story collection, a book of business essays, a book of his
WWII letters, a child’s book in verse and a collection of movie reviews. The
Wall Street Journal also published eighteen of his articles on business
management and one on World War II. He resides by the sea in mid-coast Maine
with his artist wife.
His latest book is When
Wars Were Won.
You can visit his website at www.StonesPointBooks.com.
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