From Booklist
*Starred Review* The author of the superb coming-of-age aviation story Flight of Passage(1997) matches its quality in this account of the first American soldier killed in combat in the present war in Iraq, Shane Childers, First Lieutenant, U.S. Marines, and his "homecoming." Childers was extraordinary--dedicated and intense about whatever he undertook as well as possessed of a vocation to be a warrior--and he became an extraordinary marine. His intensity sometimes made him rather alarming; his fiancee admitted to being a little frightened of him. And he is not the only extraordinary human being Buck portrays in the book with a genius for characterization for which many novelists would give their eyeteeth. For one, there is Captain Kevin Hutchinson, who performed far above and beyond the call of duty as a casualty assistance and calls officer, ably assisted by Sergeant Barry Morgan, a real old-line marine. Childers' family rose to what can only be called noble heights in dealing with their devastating loss, and all of Powell, Wyoming, participated in Shane's homecoming, from the funeral director outward into the rest of the community. There hasn't so far been a better portrait of the wartime American military at its best, nor one of the kind of family and community that produce a very high percentage of the men and women called to go to war. Roland Green
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Kirkus Reviews
"A fine and moving story, full of heroes."
Sun Herald (Mississippi)
"Hard to put down...a good read about a great man."
Book Description
A heartfelt, deeply evocative and emotionally resonant true story of the first American killed in the Iraq War -- a stirring tale behind the complex, fascinating life of a hero marine
On March 21, 2003, while leading a rifle platoon into combat, Marine Lieutenant Shane Childers became the first combat fatality of the Iraq War. In this gripping, beautifully written personal history, award-winning writer Rinker Buck chronicles Shane's death and his life, exploring its meaning for his family, his fellow soldiers, and the country itself. The gathering of the family for his burial on a remote Wyoming ranch has all the elements of a classic American tale.
From childhood, Shane emulated the ferocious energy and commitment demonstrated by his father, a veteran of two tours in Vietnam and who was taken hostage as a navy Seabee at the American embassy in Tehran. Choosing the military, this relentlessly competitive young marine built one of the most exemplary military careers of his generation -- becoming a Gulf War veteran at the age of eighteen, a marine security guard in Europe and Africa in his early twenties, a dean's list student at The Citadel, and so valued a platoon leader that he was among the first sent over the berm into Iraq in 2003. A fascinatingly enigmatic character -- fierce, compulsive, dedicated -- he was also a madcap adventure lover with a deep concern for the world around him.
Shane Comes Home is the story of this intelligent, gifted soldier who embodied the soul of today's all-volunteer warrior class; of the town of Powell, Wyoming, which had taken Shane into its heart in the same way he had adopted the mountains and vistas of its surrounding areas into his own; and of the marine detail sent to deliver the news to the Childers family and the extraordinary connection that formed between them.
At once an inspiring account of commitment to the military and a moving story of family and devotion, Shane Comes Home rises above politics and captures the life of an extraordinary young man who came to symbolize the heart of America during a difficult time. An invaluable record of our nation's changing attitudes toward the military and those who serve, it is a thoughtful tribute to a man whose sacrifice touches us all.
Shane Comes Home FROM THE PUBLISHER
At once an inspiring account of commitment to the military and a moving story of family and devotion, Shane Comes Home rises above politics and captures the life of an extraordinary young man who came to symbolize the heart of America during a difficult time. An invaluable record of or nation's changing attitudes toward the military and those who serve, it is a thoughtful tribute to a man whose sacrifice touches us all.
FROM THE CRITICS
Kirkus Reviews
An affecting portrait of the first American combat fatality in the Iraq war, and of those who suffered his loss. As Hartford Courant staff writer Buck (Flight of Passage, 1997) reports, Marine Lt. Shane Childers was "one of a handful of grunts picked every year for promotion from the enlisted to commissioned officer ranks," and for good reason: he excelled at everything he turned his hand to, had grown from redneck to world traveler and would-be French teacher, and was "the kind of soldier whom all the enlisted men and officers boasted about and who was well known throughout the network of Marine bases across the country." His legend, the reader is left to presume, will only increase in the wake of his death. Shot down only a dozen hours after assuming command of a rifle platoon while attempting to secure an Iraqi oil-pumping station, Childers was an exemplary soldier; of that Buck leaves no doubt. But there are other noteworthy soldiers in Buck's cast of characters, including the young CACO, or Casualty Assistance Calls Officer, assigned to bring the news of Childers's death to his family. Buck's leisurely developed account of the rituals by which Marines attend to their fallen is very well done, though at points not for the squeamish. Well done, too, are the character studies that emerge as Buck relates the effects of Childers's death on his small community and his many relatives. Childers's inconsolable Vietnam vet father and his mother wrestle early on with the question of whether to inter him in Arlington National Cemetery, "buried in the company of soldiers he practically knew," but decide instead to return him to the Wyoming mountain country he loved; in each step of reaching eachdecision, they emerge as people of great principle. So do Childers's fellow Marines, and particularly that young captain, who questions the war in Iraq but nonetheless lobbies hard to be sent to fight there, doing the job he was trained to do. A fine and moving story, full of heroes.
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