Before history remembered him as an Unknown Soldier, he was Leonard James Carter.
In December 1941, Leonard is an eighteen-year-old rancher’s son from Klamath Falls, Oregon; a gifted football player in love with Lucille Harper and dreaming of a quiet future beside Upper Klamath Lake. Then Pearl Harbor changes everything.
Determined to serve his country, Leonard enlists in the United States Marine Corps and leaves behind his family, his hometown, and the young woman he has promised to marry. Carried across the Pacific, he is transformed from an untested recruit into a battle-hardened leader as he fights through Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan, Tinian, and Okinawa.
Through every landing, every loss, and every impossible advance, Leonard carries reminders of home inside an oilskin packet: Lucille’s letters, pressed flowers, a pine needle from Oregon, and a pencil sketch of the life they still hope to share. While Lucille waits and prays for his return, Leonard discovers that courage is not the absence of fear and that leadership sometimes demands the ultimate sacrifice.
Unknown Soldier: World War II is a sweeping historical novel of love, brotherhood, duty, and remembrance. It imagines the life history could not preserve and honors the ordinary Americans whose names, dreams, and unfinished futures were lost to war.
The nation may remember an Unknown Soldier. But someone, somewhere, always knew his name.