War Is Hell: A Tale of War and One Man's Search for Meaning, (Paperback)

This story is told by a soldier who was a part of the bloody war in Burma, the executive officer of a rugged group of American jungle fighters. He tells us in great detail what the war did to him and how he feels about taking another man's life even to protect his own as he searches for meaning in it all...

World War II is winding down in the summer of 1945, but not for Major Jenkins and his band of Merrill's Marauders. They have spent months combing the Burmese jungle for the notorious Japanese commander Colonel Maruyama and his troops. Major Jenkins, Captain Beltrans and what was left of their band were outnumbered two to one; so they had to devise a plan that would overcome the odds. But after they settled the score with their enemy, they had to march hundreds of miles through the jungle back to their base near the Indian border. It was now August and the war was over, but how would the local civilians living along the only trail out of Burma view the American soldiers?

Their journey back home was fraught with unexpected dangers and facing unplanned enemies through an unforgiving jungle. They had never been taught at West Point how to fight their new enemy.

After the war, Captain Beltrans is convinced that he should return Colonel Maruyama's samurai sword to his descendants in Japan. However, what he thought would be a routine side trip to a modern country turned into a harrowing adventure in Japanese politics and a thousand-year-old culture. He ended up in an ancient Zen garden in Kyoto wondering if he had done the right thing by killing enemy soldiers and civilians during the war. Does he get help from his deceased native grandmother?