Happy Memorial Day!

Warrior Writers!

Authors who served in times of war, in the US and abroad.

Today, here in the United States, it is Memorial Day!  Originally called Decoration Day to memorialize the Civil War, Memorial Day came about after competing Union and Confederate memorial celebrations were unified with the current holiday, which now celebrates and memorializes everyone who fought for the United States.

On this Memorial Day, I want to take the time to recognize some authors who fought in some of the biggest conflicts of the last century.  Some are not from the United States, but it's my blog and I don't care.  

First, some Americans:

J.D. Salinger  

Served in the US Army during World War II.  He was in one of the first waves of the D-Day landing and saw combat in many major engagements, including the Battle of the Bulge.  He even participated in the liberation of concentration camps.  Salinger is best know for The Catcher in the Rye.

Kurt Vonnegut

Another American Veteran of the Second World War, Vonnegut was at the Battle of the Bulge where he was taken as a Prison of War.  While imprisoned in Dresden, he was an eye witness of the firebombing of that city.  He survived the destruction by hiding in an underground meatlock called "Schlachthof Fünf", or "Slaughterhouse Five" in German.  It should be no wonder why his most recognized book, Slaughterhouse Five which takes place during the War, seems autobiographical.

Ernest Hemmingway

The last American on our list, Hemingway, served in the Army in World War I.  As an ambulance driver in Italy during the last part of the war, he saw little combat, but earned Italian Silver Star for saving the life of an Italian soldier, despite having received shrapnel wounds himself.  His novella, "A Farewell to Arms" was inspired by his experiences.

Bonus Round:

It is interesting to note that another famous American author, F. Scott Fitzgerald almost saw service in that war along with Hemingway, but the war ended before he saw European soil, something he would lament about in his crowning work, The Great Gatsby.

C.S. Lewis

Author of the Chronicles of Narnia, Lewis saw some of the worst of the trench warfare that took place in Northern France during the First World War.  In early 1918, he was severely wounded by an artillery shell, and was sent home.  He would later become a friend of the next author on this list. 

J.R.R. Tolkien

No list of authors (on my blog, anyway) would be complete without the Professor.  A lieutenant in the British Army, Tolkien was one of the last members of the British Mounted Cavalry to actually use horses during the First World War.  His job, to break in the horses for other officers, left him with a deep respect for the animals, clearly represented in the culture of Rohan in The Lord of the Rings.  Also, his time at the Battle of the Somme heavily influenced his understanding of war.  This battle saw the first deployment of the war machines we call tanks, and its impact on him is clearly felt in the tales of The Silmarillion.  Tolkien's work is often called allegorical, comparing the One Ring to the Atomic Bomb, but Tolkien's foreword to the book puts that to rest quite harshly as such:  

“I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history – true or feigned– with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.”