WW II Veterans Novel Reveals How One Battlefield Decision Can Forever Change A Soldiers Life

Real life experience foundation for tale of redemption? Soldiers in any war are trained to kill. But was one man, a Lieutenant in the U.S. Army, just doing his job when he watched one of his Sergeants execute a severely wounded, helpless Japanese soldier at Iwo Jima during World War II? Could he have stopped him? Should he have? Would this single event change his life in any way?

(PRWEB) January 7, 2005 -- Real life experience foundation for tale of redemption?

Soldiers in any war are trained to kill. But was one man, a Lieutenant in the U.S. Army, just doing his job when he watched one of his Sergeants execute a severely wounded, helpless Japanese soldier at Iwo Jima during World War II? Could he have stopped him? Should he have? Would this single event change his life in any way?

Looking back decades later, World War II veteran Lester Taube decided to write a novel premised on his actual experiences at Iwo Jima. His motivation was clear: What might have occurred if he had actually traveled to Japan as he had planned many times and confronted the family whom his Sergeant brutally shattered?

Taube, an internationally acclaimed novelist who has sold hundreds of thousands of copies of his books throughout Europe, uses real experiences to create a compelling what if" novel -- Atonement for Iwo.

Twenty years after the famous battle at Iwo Jima, former First Lieutenant Keith Masters, after suffering a heart attack, is convinced his lifes misfortunes are a direct result of what happened that day on Iwo Jima.

After revisiting the relics taken from the executed soldier, he travels to Japan to seek the family of the dead man, to atone for his inaction that faithful day. Masters becomes involved with the slain Japanese soldiers wife, a former prostitute, who has become one of the wealthiest women in the country, as he takes on the persona of lover and hero. But Iwo Jima and memories of a ruthless battlefield execution remain. The result: a powerful saga of a soldier seeking redemption for his battlefield actions--a theme that relates to soldiers of all wars.

I wrote Atonement for Iwo as what might have occurred had I gone to find the family of the dead Japanese soldier," Taube explains. I had the picture and the name card of this man, but never had the heart to face the family of the man who we had killed."

The premise for my novel is something young men are presently facing in combat in the Middle East," adds Taube. When the 'fog of war recedes, many a man encounters the skeletons formerly hidden in the mist; and that can be tougher than combat itself."

Lester Taube started his military career with the horse artillery at the age of fifteen. He was a platoon leader during World War II, fighting in Iwo Jima and Okinawa. He left the army to run a series of successful business ventures, then returned to military service as an advisor to the Turkish army, as an intelligence officer and company commander in Korea, and as a general staff officer in intelligence and war plans during the Vietnam war. Prior to his retirement as a full Colonel, he lived in a small village in Austria before moving back to the United States, where he now resides in New Jersey. He is the author of four highly-acclaimed books which were published throughout the world.

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