Christopher O'Meara

The images of soldiers and marines coming ashore on hostile shores are embedded in our collective memory of World War II. But what of the sailors who manned the landing craft, going back and forth under fire with nowhere to take cover, their craft the special targets of enemy gunners? In this book, Ken Wiley, a Coast Guardsman on an Attack Transport in the Pacific, relates the intricate, often nerve-wracking story of how the United States projected its power across 6,000 miles in the teeth of fanatical Japanese resistance.

Historians have long told the story of America’s birth as the triumph of Jefferson’s democratic ideals over the aristocratic intentions of Hamilton. Chernow presents an entirely different man, whose legendary ambitions were motivated not merely by self-interest but by passionate patriotism and a stubborn will to build the foundations of American prosperity and power.

As a boy growing up in New York City, Kevin P. Gilheany had two dreams: To join the Coast Guard, and to play the bagpipes. But by the time he finished high school he was overweight, had a drinking problem, and couldn’t swim. Undeterred by the doubts of the folks at home, he decided to enlist in the Coast Guard anyway. With great determination, and some divine intervention, he passed the swim test and graduated from boot camp, thus beginning an eventful and diverse 20-year career in the 1980s and 1990s Coast Guard.

The daughter of a Legion war hero, fighting was in Andien Broxin's blood. But the battles Republic marines face on strange and alien worlds are a far cry from the vaunted, brutal, no-holds-barred conflicts fought at the edge of the galaxy by the elite legionnaires. Until a devastating war erupts right in the Republic’s stellar backyard. Newly stationed on a mid-core planet being harassed by terrorist revolutionaries, Andien and her fellow “hullbusters” find themselves right in the middle of a desperate fight for survival.

Narrated by Emmy Award–winning actor Martin Sheen, The Home Front: Life in America During World War II takes listeners into the lives of Americans at home—part of the Greatest Generation—who supported the war effort and sustained the country during wartime. The war brought immediate, life-changing shifts: the rationing of meat, dairy products, and sugar; an explosion of war-related jobs; and, despite mixed signals, a greater role for women working outside the home.