Minefields of the Heart: A Mother's Stories of a Son at War by Sue Diaz
Summary: How do combat veterans and their loved ones bridge the divide that war, by its very nature, creates between them? How does someone who has fought in a war come home, especially after a tour of duty marked by near-daily mortar attacks, enemy fire, and roadside bombs? With a journalist's eye and a mother's warmth, Sue Diaz asks these questions as she chronicles the two deployments to Iraq of her son, Sgt. Roman Diaz, from the perspective of the home front. Diaz recounts the emotional rollercoaster her family and other soldiers' families experience during and after deployment. She explores this terrain not only through stories of her son's and family's experiences connected to the Iraq War, but also by insights she's gained from other veterans' accounts - from what she calls "the box" that soldiers returning from any war carry within. This added layer gives her narrative broader meaning, bringing home the impact of war in general on those who fight and on those who love them.
Join in the Discussion!
Share your comments on any question below:
1. Roman's decision to join the infantry surprises his mother, who had expected that the next chapter in her son's life would have been college. How would you respond to a son's or daughter's decision to join the armed forces in a time of war? Did you enlist and how did you tell your family?
Editorial Reviews:
"Minefields of the Heart is a brilliant, beautiful, and compelling book. Sue Diaz writes as the mother of one soldier and the daughter of another. She traces her son's transition from a boy to a combat-wounded veteran of two tours in Iraq. She lets him speak for himself through emails, letters and conversation, all the while growing in her understanding of him and of war. She weaves together her family's history with the larger events through which they have passed. Though intended specifically 'for all who have served and those who love them,' the book should be read by any American who wants to understand what war really does to those who endure and to their families. As a bonus, the book is a real page-turner. You can't put it down until you finish it."
— William P. Mahedy, author of Out of the Night: The Spiritual Journey of Vietnam Vets
"This is a book to break your heart, and to heal it. Diaz writes to and for her son, to and for the veterans she leads in writing workshops. The larger gift of this book is its generosity, allowing the reader to take the journey of a mother whose son carries the wounds of two deployments to Iraq. Minefields of the Heart teaches us what we might rather not know, but knowing, we are deeper and better human beings."
— Pat Schneider, author of Writing Alone and with Others
Our Online Book Club is devoting January through April to discussing the 2013 Silicon Valley Reads selections. This year's theme "Invisible Wounds of War" features The Long Walk by Brian Castner and Minefields of the Heart by Sue Diaz, as well as companion books for children and teens. Check out the many events at our libraries and throughout the community that feature programs related to this theme and the authors of the books.
From the Author:
I am honored that my book Minefields of the Heart: A Mother's Stories of a Son at War has been selected for Silicon Valley Reads 2013.
On the surface, Minefields of the Heart is about my son's two tours of duty in Iraq as an infantryman during the height of the insurgency. Like combat veterans of every war, Roman lived through events that would bring out both the best and the worst that human beings are capable of.
In my capacity as a journalist during that time, I wrote to reach readers and invite them into the uncertain world of families with loved ones in a war zone. I wanted them to pull up a chair at our kitchen tables, to watch the evening news with us in our family rooms, to feel the fears we lived with, the hope we clung to, and the joy we knew when our sons and daughters returned.
I wanted readers to realize, too, that for many combat veterans, 'coming home' is a journey - a journey that can last a lifetime.
With today's all-volunteer military, it is, I think, too easy for most Americans to feel disconnected from the conflicts our country is engaged in, to feel that war is someone else's job, someone else's responsibility. So I also wrote in hopes of bringing home the fact that when our country is at war - whether we agree or not with the politics that took us there - we, as a society, are in it together. The moral responsibility belongs to us all.
While I continued to write about the war in the series for the Christian Science Monitor that became the starting point for the book, I began to lead writing workshops for war veterans. And I became more and more aware of the fact that war is an experience that transforms those in it, as well as those who wait for them at home. What started out as one journalist's chronicle of her family's wartime experiences turned into a book that explores the impact of war on the human soul. Mother Teresa once said, 'If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.'
More about the book: www.minefieldsoftheheart.com
The Author Reads From Her Book:
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