Seven Lives to Repay Our Country, by Edward H. Carpenter

Click on cover image to purchase a copy

Click on cover image to purchase a copy

MWSA Review

At MWSA, we applaud original thought and creativity. Ed Carpenter, a US Marine, steps into the skin of his characters -- once enemies -- and makes them come alive as real people. Things like culture and military training melt away in the extremety of war and we become alike in our humanity. At the end of the road, prey and preditor become simply people choosing whether to live or die. An intense, lovely story that invokes thought.

Reviewed by: Joyce Faulkner (2012)

Author's Synopsis

The battle of Saipan pitted US Marines and Allied soldiers against the island's Japanese defenders in one of the bloodiest battles in the Pacific War. In this short story written by a US Marine, a pair of Japanese soldiers on Saipan confront the inevitability of defeat in different ways.

This story mixes fact and fiction to examine the nature of humanity in modern warfare. Please note that this is a short story, written as a submission to the Kindle Singles collection, and priced accordingly. It is 9 pages long (approx. 3000 words) and contains author's notes that highlight the historical and fictional influences that drove the story.

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