Gray Books

I will let you do your own research on the merits of the HCSB translation, which is excellent in my estimation.

As far as the specifics of this edition, it really is "Duo-Tone", not bonded leather. Duo-Tone is more durable than bonded leather (which is nothing more than leather scraps that are molded together) and it is very soft to the touch. This Bible will lay flat when opened, which is generally an indication decent quality binding. Another thing to be aware of, my edition does not have the 'slide tab', though it has the same ISBN number.

The paper is much better than the paper used in the my ESV Classic Thinline. It is brighter and it has far less bleed-through.

I am a former pastor who was looking for a Bible with several specific features.

The new Sword Bible is the Bible I enthusiastically selected.

I particularly like its:

Red Text for words spoken by God in the Old Testament (as well as by Jesus in the New Testament)

King James Version EASY READ --- Words no longer used in modern english have their english equivalents printed in a different and smaller font at the end of the verse.

Good blank margin space around the pages.

The easy-to-read font type is large for a Bible this size.

The Topical Concordance in the back is a big help.

It has a special study guide found along the page margins

And it has much more.

It's a terrific Bible that I would enthusiastically recommend to my friends.

When will the war finally come to an end? No, we are not talking about Iraq, Afghanistan, or even the War on Terror. We are talking about Viet Nam (Willard D. Gray uses the spelling acceptable back in the day).

As a Veteran of both Vietnam and Gulf War One, a Retired Military Officer, and the father of a Soldier who served in Iraq, I strongly and passionately recommend this insightful book to ANY military family who QUESTIONS let alone opposes the Iraq War. In fact, I recommend it to anyone who QUESTIONS what our government has committed our nation to without the full consent of the American people, and without unequivocal National commitment and sacrifice.

Home Front: Families at War is a primer for what Military Families who question, not oppose, but only question the War on Terror can expect from their community if they had done the same sort of QUESTIONING during Vietnam. This is a must read if you are a member of Military Families Speak Out (MFSO) or can relate to our concerns.

After reading Home Front, and now having something to compare it to (the Home Front during Vietnam and Iraq), the experiences of military families who questioned (but few opposed) the Vietnam War receive far worse reception and treatment than anything today's military families who QUESTION receive. I believe what accounts for this is the overwhelming number of American citizens who have been willing and able to QUESTION the motives and declarations of our government. More people today know for a fact that our government leaders habitually lie to the American people. During Vietnam, especially the first half of the war, at least until 1968, the vast majority of the nation, including troops serving in Vietnam found it impossible to believe our government would lie to us.

Home Front: Viet Nam and Families at War teaches and informs those of us who can relate, and the public in general, of the private and public humiliation, personal family ordeals, and shattered families that a questionable and controversial WAR had brought to any military family that questioned the Vietnam War.

Despite what critics have said to dissuade Willard from writing the book, and others from reading it, not one Veteran, including Willard, not one family written about in this book was part of the established anti-War movement back in the day. Their only socio-political crime was having the Patriotic gall to question the war and course set for the nation by decision makers who, like today, cannot relate to those who carry the burdens of war. The basic difference between Vietnam and Iraq is that during Vietnam there was the facade of National commitment via THE DRAFT, but for Iraq precious few have been asked to and expected to sacrifice for the rest of us.

Their experiences, an ongoing tragedy since the last U.S. Soldier left Vietnamese soil, reveal the physical and psychological wounds of war (PTSD when it was unheard of and its existence challenged, proliferation of bad conduct and personality disorder (or failure to adjust to military service) discharges that were less than Honorable, even if the Veteran had served multiple combat tours in Vietnam.

The lesson we as military families can take from reading this book is that as Willard said these are, "wounds that don't discriminate between soldiers and their families regardless if they are pro or anti-war."

From the backwoods of Maine to the rugged wide open spaces of Montana, Willard has collected testimony from at least a dozen soldiers and their extended families. On hindsight this is testimony that should have been given at the first Winter Soldier, but that one did not have a panel for Military Families shattered by the war. Most families back in the day would most likely not have attended anyway, because it was the war they questioned, but did not oppose. Most families only sought, like the Tillman's today, answers from their government and military as to why?

Here is a sampling of what the public will learn about how military families both during Vietnam and today were and are treated by those most adamant about continuing the Iraq War, but who refuse to sacrifice their own life blood.

3. From the Ashes

a. Outcasts - families who experience Patriotic [really Nationalistic] Ostracism, not because they were Unpatriotic or because they opposed war. The soul justification for quarantining them was that they QUESTIONED. It was considered more UNPATRIOTIC back in the day to QUESTION than it is NOW. Ask any military family, Veteran, or even active duty troops TODAY how it feels, the reaction and reception they get when they QUESTION their war, or any war. Then multiply that response by ten, then you have the equivalent of what families during Vietnam got if they but QUESTIONED the war.

The same misguided WWII mentality of war being glorious and valorous, sanitized and censored to keep out the downside, racism, nationalism, propaganda apparatus, and hate and war mongering system existed then as NOW. The vast exception was that it was more vicious and effective than now, or the national popularity polls for Bush and his war would be much higher. Point: The national popularity ratings of Johnson and Nixon never reached the lows of President G.W. Bush, because it was near impossible to QUESTION anything they or our government did.

Willard's book breaks the MYTH spread by the pro-war movement that it was liberals and the liberal media that lost the Vietnam War as it would be the shameful elements that would lose Iraqnam.

The center of the anti-war movement back in the day was urban areas, college campuses, NOT rural America by a long shot. Frankly, the center of the anti-war movement TODAY pretty much remains the urban scene, there is realistically no anti-war resistance on college campuses, because we have NO DRAFT, and it a family resides in rural America, that is where most volunteers for Iraq come from - YOU BETTER NOT QUESTION LET ALONE OPPOSE THEIR WAR! However, the price you pay comes nowhere near what these families endured.

Career Moves - Yes, there were and still are successful Veterans, even a few who still complain about their VALOR being stolen. That does not mean WE were immune to or free from the horrors of war, just better equipped to cope. [BACKGROUND: Stolen Valor was a ultra-conservative, partisan book written by friends of the Bush family in Texas to ironically expose Fake Veterans, as they ignored just how fake G.W. Bush was and still is. These right-wing Veterans created the MYTH that liberals [Rush Limbaugh, and his ilk, helped enhance this myth] within the anti-war movement and leftists within Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) turned the American people against the war effort and against our troops].

The Rudow Family - it was this chapter more than any, because it tells the story of how many Vietnam Veterans returned to the world and what they perceived as back to normal. If anyone even admits they were in combat, tells you as they look off with that thousand mile long stare that they had no problems readjusting to the world after combat, either they were never in Vietnam, in combat, or they still are just as unstable now as when they returned from Nam. (Point: You are not going to find too many Nam Vets telling you they returned to a normal life, successful maybe, like me, but I wouldn't go as far as to say NORMAL).

Honor Restored - Willard saved the best for last. The story of his family coping with trying to upgrade their son's less than honorable discharge during a period of time when draft dodgers were being granted amnesty and welcomed home from Canada, was what focused public attention, prejudice, hate, and anger toward Willard's family.

Being a Life Member of Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA), and volunteering for Veterans for America (VFA), I know first hand that the Justice Project formed by Bobby Muller after he left VVA and now has legal expertise allied with VFA, was designed with a mission of trying best they could to upgrade less than honorable discharges and get the coding of DD-214s stopped. (Coding that told employers everything about a Veteran from low IQ to drug and alcohol abuse even if the discharge was Honorable). This in fact, was an effort of VVA, and still remains so with our incarcerated Veterans program. Did you know that VVA is among the only Veterans Service Organization that allows Veterans in prison and jails to form a chapter?

The Gray Family. I want to provide an extract from this chapter in order to give members of MFSO, or military families thinking about QUESTIONING any aspect of our war (deployments, expectations, PTSD, national commitment to win) food for thought. Are YOU prepared to potentially go through what these families did? Some in fact went through more horrible experiences than the Gray Family.

As WE read this excerpt from the last chapter in Home Front, I ask that WE take a moment and walk in the shoes of the Gray family.

Here is a Retired Military Senior NCO, a fellow military retiree (who BTW is treated as a fifth class citizen, as our generation is treated like third class or stowage) when it comes to the military retiree benefits they have been legislated out of. The most successful among that Greatest Generation sweeps the stench under the carpet for political expediency for they have money to burn at Casinos, and could care less if they got Social Security or not, because they can't take the $$$ they have with them when they depart the mortal plain.

Anyway, his son or daughter (our son or daughter) patriotically and proudly joins the Army (or Marines), they survive a combat tour or two, three or ten, but when the pressure and heat of battle fries their brain, who do you think will be the first to make a move to dispose of them? GIs were (and are) referred to as GIs (or Government Issue), because WE were and are expendable.

You got it the Pentagon. Figuring that cost savings was not as much of an incentive to prevent Veterans from becoming Veterans by giving them bad conduct or less than honorable discharges, there was an epidemic of them compared to today. Ask anyone at VVA or VFA staff who has had to work bad papers how the numbers compare to our relatively smaller All Volunteer Force, and I rest our case.

It was also far easier to get rid of used up troops during Vietnam, because not only was PTSD unheard of, but efforts to research it and get it recognized were being opposed by every right-wing, conservative element that supported a continued presence in Vietnam, including established Veterans organizations like the American Legion and VFW working with the Pentagon to keep troops wounded in mind and body continuously fighting in the jungles of Viet Nam.

In fact, PTSD became associated with Vietnam Veterans within the anti-Vietnam War movement and jokingly referred to VVA as Vietnam Victims of America a derogatory term for Bobby Muller's VVA back in the day, because it was one of the only Veterans groups fighting to have both Agent Orange and PTSD recognized by our government worthy of compensation and future treatment.

Willard begins his families' story by talking about his own military career, blends in how his son joined the military following in Dad's footsteps only to be disenchanted by the war as a combat medic, how it was going, and gaining a disdain for "lifers" like his Dad.

The moral of Willard's story is that here is a Career Military Family, with the father a Senior NCO, having to deal with the fact that right, wrong, or otherwise, their child [a military brat] has gotten a bad conduct discharge from the Army after gallantly serving in Vietnam as a medic. We are talking about a Brooks Army Hospital certified and trained medic here.

Talking about bursting your patriotic bubble, in their trials and tribulations trying to and successfully getting their son's discharge upgraded to a General Discharge, that would make him eligible for VA benefits, this military family went through HELL ON EARTH!!!

Willard writes from page 318 to 322 in Home Front: Viet Nam and Families at War.

"On a Sunday afternoon in the spring of 1972, I approached the pastor at a local church which I had attended in my childhood. I was still considered a member of the church. I presented [the pastor] with three documents on the [Vietnam] war [that were intended to inspire questions and debate on the war within our congregation], and I asked him if I may address the congregation on a "human needs issue."

[In many Churches of the Christian faith such soul searching testimony is called to Bare of Give Spiritual Witness or share spiritual inspiration with the congregation even if it bordered on ethical-moral-spiritual-political controversy. Any bible will reflect where even Jesus, the Christ, was placed in a position of having to respond under diress and torture to political questions regarding Caesar, and the son of God.]

I did not ask [the pastor] for money, or for any specific time. The pastor seemed to be very open [minded] to the idea and took the manila envelope, promising to look over the documents and discuss them with me the following week. When I returned the next Sunday, I found the church empty, and the parsonage occupants would not respond to my knocks. Disappointed, I visited an old family friend nearby who, upon hearing my story, said, "Now I know what this morning's sermon was about!"

[Depending upon denomination churches may have an early morning service, and Sunday school, then a service later in the morning before lunch].

Eager to discover if perhaps I had struck a cord with the pastor, we both hurriedly returned to the church, where we found [the pastor] exiting with the package I had given him the week before. "Good!" I exclaimed as we got out of the car. "What's the word?"

[The pastor's reply was shocking to say the least].

"After the services this morning," [the pastor] said, "they held a special deacons' meeting and decreed that you are not welcome in this church." [We are talking about a House of God here folks????]

"Apparently, [the pastor] had not mentioned me by name in his sermon, but had managed to arouse the curiosity - and indignation - of several in the congregation. Upon finding out the source of the sermon, the church deacons met and wasted little time in officially banning me from the church.

Honest debate on the war, I was finding out, was not just unpatriotic. It was heretical.

The parallels between how military families were ostracized during Vietnam and Iraqnam is frightening. These families were literally terrorized by fellow Americans. Thought not as bad, such harassment continues today and will continue as long as there remains QUESTIONS.

Robert L. Hanafin
SP/5, U.S. Army (69-76)
Major, U.S. Air Force - Retired
Military Families Speak Out (OHIO)

About the Reviewer: Bobby Hanafin is on the Editorial Board of Our Troops News Ladder, a Life Member of Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA), Life Member of the Disabled American Veterans (DAV), and volunteer for two 21st century Veterans Service Organizations - Veterans for Common Sense (VCS), and Veterans for America (VFA). He spent near 30 years serving the nation in and out of uniform with experience as enlisted and NCO in the Army, went to college on the Vietnam Era GI Bill, got his commission in the Air Force retiring in 1994. He is also a retired Department of the Navy senior civilian.

A brilliant look at the performance of the first all black fighter squadron of the second world war. They were called suicidal and were cheated of kills by their superiors who believed black people shouldn't be fighting alongside white people. Did they screw up?. Yes but no more than other people but because they were black it was publicized whenever they screwed up, and often when they didn't. 10 out of 10

This is a perfect book to read and complete the surveys together with your significant other. I read this book in one sitting and can't wait to get started going through the surveys with my husband and seeing where we differ in our ideas and where we have the same ideas, and spend more time on sitting down and communicating together.

As most of your know with the busy schedules of work, home, kids, etc. it is hard to set time aside for yourself. The author gives you great insight into working on your own relationship also, and also provides follow up books if you want more knowledge about a certain area.

I would highly recommend this book to any couple working together or thinking of working together.

Peter Mayle is a gem of a writter. This whole series is a "MUST HAVE" on any coffee table. Takes the mystique out of "learning the facts of life " in an old fashioned and charming way.

Marion Coste hit a home run with her book, Honu. "Honu" is the Hawaiian name for the green sea turtle, the theme of this book. Coste goes through the life cycle of this amazing animal, focusing on the Pacific green sea turtle resident to Hawaiian waters. Accompanied by Cissy Gray's illustrations, Coste provides a very accurate, yet readable, overview of honu reproduction, mortality factors, growth, and behavior. She notes assistance from Mr. Honu himself, George Balazs.

I use this book as my outline when I give presentations on sea turtles to school groups in grades 1-12, starting with the tale of the female honu searching for a place to lay her eggs.

A very nice book, dedicated to "... the children of Hawai'i, who hold the future of the islands in their hands and hearts."

Mark Allen Gray is an important new voice in the poetry genre. His book, The Hounds of Love, captured my interest from the first poem to the last. The raw emotion evinced in his narrative is at times painful, yet always truthful, for lost love is a universal hurt. On the flip side, his sensitive, gentle portrayal of love found gives hope to us all that goodness will ultimately prevail. A searing, insightful read.

This was a good read. This book was written with a lot of emotion and was easy to read. It was a page turner that kept you wanting to see what the end would bring. I am surprised this book doesn't have more fanfare. This book told the story of real life events that happen to a lot of women. Is there a sequel coming?

11-year-old Christian has been warned his family has a tradition of hearing voices of saints or sages, but is astonished when his voice turns out to be God himself. The first thing the Voice says to him is, "Why do you worry so much, Christian?" He has a lot of worries for a young boy, including his parents' estrangement. Since hearing a voice also worries him, God kindly takes the form of an abused child and lives with Christian for a few days. He displays some surprising tastes (Coca-cola and old movies) and has a profound impact on Christian, his family, and many others, even without miracles.
I was surprised at how much this book affected me. My 10- and 14-year-old daughters also loved it when I read it to them. This is a non-sectarian book that I think anyone who believes in God (and some who don't) could enjoy and be encouraged by. (There are some references to Jesus, but God also speaks well of a 19th century Jewish peasant.) I am an evangelical Presbyterian and Christian (and, I believe, the author) is Catholic, but I had few disagreements with what God says and does. The things I didn't agree with were overwhelmed by the things I could accept and grow through.