Citizen Soldier

A father's odyssey. A mother's strength. A son's story. 


--- Citizen Soldier is Book 1 of the trilogy, Wilber's War, which chronicles the story of two ordinary Americans, Wilber and Norma Bradt, during an extraordinary time, World War II. It offers fresh insight--deeply personal--into the historic conflict as it was fought by the U.S. Army in the Solomon Islands, New Guinea, and The Philippines and by a family on the home front. It is an epic tale of duty, heroism, love, and human frailty. The story is told in large part in Wilber's own words in a sensitive editing of his some 700 richly detailed wartime letters. The work offers a detailed and nuanced view into the complexities faced by one family and by U.S. society as a whole when it ships soldiers off to war and asks loved ones to forge new lives on the home front. The trilogy is the recipient of three Finalist Awards (Benjamin Franklin of the IBPA, IndieFAB of Foreword Reviews, and Indie Excellence).


--- "Inherently fascinating read...deftly crafted...very highly recommended for both community and academic library…collections" [Midwest Book Review, June 2015]. "Hale Bradt relates a story that could resonate with the multitude of families who also sacrificed a father, a husband, or son [to war]" [Foreword Reviews, Fall 2015]. 


--- Citizen Soldier (368 pages, 7 maps, 81 photos/facsimiles, 2 charts) opens with Wilber's untimely death at war's end. It then reaches back into the Midwest origins of Wilber and Norma, their establishment of a family, and the development of their careers during the Great Depression of the 1930s. It then follows Wilber through army training camps, shipment overseas, a shipboard torpedo plane attack, and bombing raids. Norma, meanwhile, moves to New York City with her two children, to further her career ambitions, and there she encounters her own challenges. 


--- Author Hale Bradt, Wilber and Norma's son, shares his parents' stories with insight, compassion, and a wealth of carefully selected images that bring their experiences to life. Visiting in the 1980s the battlefields where his father fought, he adds another uniquely American voice to this rich story: that of a son seeking to unravel the tangled threads of his family's legacy.