Faith of Our Sons: A Father's Wartime Diary

In this follow-up to Keeping Faith: A Father-Son Story About Love and the United States Marine Corps (2002), which Schaeffer coauthored with his son, Corporal John Schaeffer, Frank and his wife confront the reality of their son's deployment to Iraq in February 2003. Although the third sentence of this""Diary of Deployment"" is""I'm elated for my boy because he sounds happy,"" the fourth is""I'm elated in the same way one is 'elated' by looking over a cliff."" Over the ensuing months, Frank and Genie work to calm their nerves, get and share information from and with other parents, and help parents whose children are killed in battle cope with their losses--some of whose letters are included here, as are letters from John, who returns to his U.S. base safely in December. Schaeffer is unflinching in recounting day-to-day dreams, fears and coping mechanisms, and in registering his own, and others', reactions to the politics of the war. Although most parents of soldiers don't write Op-Eds for the Washington Post or appear on Oprah, Schaeffer is careful to try to give voice to""ordinary"" parents and soldiers from all branches of the service, and that care is what makes this volume a valuable resource for other parents of military personal.