From Publishers Weekly
Riding the same wave of nostalgia and admiration that Tom Brokaw surfed in his acclaimed The Greatest Generation (1998), Chicago Tribune columnist Greene (Chevrolet Summers, Dairy Queen Nights) delivers a heartfelt tribute to his father's generation in this triangulated memoir. Called back to his hometown (Columbus, Ohio) to say good-bye to his dying father, Greene decides to seek out his father's longtime heroAan 83-year-old fellow WWII vet and Ohioan named Paul Tibbets. Tibbets was the man who, as a 29-year-old lieutenant colonel, piloted the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Combining excerpts from his father's wartime journals, interviews with Tibbets and his own personal recollections, Greene pays homage to the ideals of his father and conveys successfully what WWII meant to men of that generation. Meanwhile, through his conversations with Tibbets, Greene comes to better understand his late father. Like the aging pilot, Greene realizes, his father felt that the freedoms these men had fought for in the war are unappreciated by today's younger generations, and, like Tibbets, his father was angry about postwar cultural changes. Regrettably, what is occasionally a touching salute by a grieving son is marred by credulousness and overly dramatic prose. Greene's admiration and respect for the pilot of the Enola Gay even manages to get in the way of his well-honed investigative skillsA for example, he accepts with little follow-up Tibbets's assertion that he never had any regrets whatsoever about dropping the bomb. And Greene's relentlessly uncritical depictions of Tibbets's seemingly unreflective, unemotional and gruff personaAas well as his nostalgia for traditional valuesAwears thin. Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
A best-selling author and syndicated columnist for the Chicago Tribune, Greene recounts an unlikely chain of events that led from his father's death to friendship with his father's neighbor, the pilot of the famed Enola Gay. Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
There is a sense of integrity and honor that carries through this audiobook about fathers and sons, soldiers and country. Written by Chicago Tribune and Life magazine columnist Bob Greene, Duty recounts his experiences during the last few days of his father's life. It is at this time that Greene learns about a past he never knew his father had: his involvement in one of the most horrifying wartime acts of all time--the 1945 bombing of Hiroshima. With his authoritative and steady voice, reader Denis deBoisblanc brings to Greene's memoir an appropriately journalistic bent. His narration is not without feeling, though, and this helps to flesh out the piece, reminding listeners that duty to country and love of family can--and often do--coexist. R.A.P. © AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
As his father's death approached, Chicago Tribune syndicated columnist Greene was forced to come to terms with their distant relationship. He found in another man, Paul Tibbets, the pilot who flew the atomic bomb to Hiroshima, someone who could help him understand his father's generation. Tibbets lived in obscurity in Greene's hometown, Columbus, Ohio. After 20 years of attempts to interview him, Greene got to meet Tibbets informally. That led to friendship and a chance to understand the reticence and the responsibility of Tibbets' and his father's generation. To Greene, his father seemed to be the archetypal man in the gray-flannel suit, a no-nonsense corporate worker who kept his nose to the grindstone, never complaining but never connecting either. Tibbets, like Greene's father, was a reticent man. But the fact that Greene was working a legitimate news and historical angle and that he and Tibbets weren't related helped ease communication between them. Tibbets' astonishing mission and unswerving responsibility in carrying it out symbolized for Greene the sense of duty of his father's generation. That sense of duty is also evident in the ruminations of Greene's father, excerpted from the taped oral history he left for his children, which are interspersed throughout Greene's narrative. Through his father's death and his friendship with Tibbets, Greene writes, he "realized anew that so many of us only now, only at the very end, are beginning to truly know our fathers and mothers." A touching look at parent-child relationships and the psychological distance that can grow between generations. Vanessa Bush



"A touching look at parent-child relationships and the psychological distance that can grow between generations."



"A personal odyssey . . . a touching look at the differences between generations and the many actions--large and small--that define us."



"A touching look at parent-child relationships and the psychological distance that can grow between generations."



"A personal odyssey . . . a touching look at the differences between generations and the many actions--large and small--that define us."



"A personal odyssey . . . a touching look at the differences between generations and the many actions--large and small--that define us."


Book Description
When Bob Greene went home to central Ohio to be with his dying father, it set off a chain of events that led him to knowing his dad in a way he never had before -- thanks to a quiet man who lived just a few miles away, a man who had changed the history of the world.Greene's father -- a soldier with an infantry division in World War II -- often spoke of seeing the man around town. All but anonymous even in his own city, carefully maintaining his privacy, this man, Greene's father would point out to him, had "won the war." He was Paul Tibbets. At the age of twenty-nine, at the request of his country, Tibbets assembled a secret team of 1,800 American soldiers to carry out the single most violent act in the history of mankind. In 1945 Tibbets piloted a plane -- which he called Enola Gay, after his mother -- to the Japanese city of Hiroshima, where he dropped the atomic bomb.On the morning after the last meal he ever ate with his father, Greene went to meet Tibbets. What developed was an unlikely friendship that allowed Greene to discover things about his father, and his father's generation of soldiers, that he never fully understood before. Duty is the story of three lives connected by history, proximity, and blood; indeed, it is many stories, intimate and achingly personal as well as deeply historic. In one soldier's memory of a mission that transformed the world -- and in a son's last attempt to grasp his father's ingrained sense of honor and duty -- lies a powerful tribute to the ordinary heroes of an extraordinary time in American life.What Greene came away with is found history and found poetry -- a profoundly moving work that offers a vividly new perspective on responsibility, empathy, and love. It is an exploration of and response to the concept of duty as it once was and always should be: quiet and from the heart. On every page you can hear the whisper of a generation and its children bidding each other farewell.


About the Author
Bob Greene is a syndicated columnist for the Chicago Tribune. As a magazine writer, he has been lead columnist for Life and Esquire; as a broadcast journalist, he has served as contributing correspondent for ABC News Nightline. His news commentaries can be seen on television superstation WGN. His bestselling books include Duty: A Father, His Son, and the Man Who Won the War; Be True to Your School;Hang Time: Days and Dreams with Michael Jordan; Good Morning Merry Sunshine; and, with his sister, D.G. Fulford, To Our Children's Children: Preserving Family Histories for Generations to Come. His first novel, All Summer Long, has been published in a paperback edition.

FROM OUR EDITORS

When bestselling author Bob Greene went home to be with his ailing father in 1998, he began a compelling relationship with Colonel Paul Tibbets, the man who piloted the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the A-bomb on Hiroshima. Greene tells of Tibbets's training for and execution of that vital military mission, at the same time more fully understanding his own father's role as part of the "Greatest Generation."

FROM THE PUBLISHER

When Bob Greene went home to central Ohio to be with his dying father, it set off a chain of events that led him to knowing his dad in a way he never had before, thanks to a quiet man who lived just a few miles away and changed the history of the world. In 1945, Paul Tibbets had piloted a plane called Enola Gay to the Japanese city of Hiroshima, where he dropped the atomic bomb. On the morning after the last meal Greene ever ate with his father, he went to meet Tibbets. What developed was an unexpected friendship that allowed Greene to discover things about his father, and his father's generation of soldiers, that he had never fully understood before.

About the Author:

Bob Greene is a syndicated columnist for the Chicago Tribune and a columnist for Life magazine. His reports and commentary appear in more than 200 newspapers in the United States, Canada, and Japan. For nine years is "American Beat" was the lead column in Esquire, and as a broadcast journalist he has served as contributing correcpondent for "ABC News Nightline." His bestselling books include Be True to Your School, Good Morning, Merry Sunshine, and with his sister, D. G. Fulford, To Our Children's Children: Preserving Family Histories for Generations to Come. He lives in Chicago, IL.

FROM THE CRITICS

R. Z. Sheppard - Time

In Duty, Bob Greene goes back to Columbus to see his dying father, a highly decorated World War II infantry officer. In an effort to understand his dad and the men of his generation, Greene persuades is hometown's most renowned veteran, Tibbets to finally break his silence. This book is remarkable not only for the scorching accounts of war but also because the book was written by a son desperate to know father who never talked about the most intense experiences of his lives.

New York Times Book Review

"[Greene] delineates one of the most significant cultural divides in America—between the deeply dutiful World War II generation and its more cynical and radically individualistic descendants.

Rocky Mountain News

A personal odyssey...a touching look at the differences between generations and the many actions—large and small—that define us.

Publishers Weekly

Riding the same wave of nostalgia and admiration that Tom Brokaw surfed in his acclaimed The Greatest Generation (1998), Chicago Tribune columnist Greene (Chevrolet Summers, Dairy Queen Nights) delivers a heartfelt tribute to his father's generation in this triangulated memoir. Called back to his hometown (Columbus, Ohio) to say good-bye to his dying father, Greene decides to seek out his father's longtime hero--an 83-year-old fellow WWII vet and Ohioan named Paul Tibbets. Tibbets was the man who, as a 29-year-old lieutenant colonel, piloted the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Combining excerpts from his father's wartime journals, interviews with Tibbets and his own personal recollections, Greene pays homage to the ideals of his father and conveys successfully what WWII meant to men of that generation. Meanwhile, through his conversations with Tibbets, Greene comes to better understand his late father. Like the aging pilot, Greene realizes, his father felt that the freedoms these men had fought for in the war are unappreciated by today's younger generations, and, like Tibbets, his father was angry about postwar cultural changes. Regrettably, what is occasionally a touching salute by a grieving son is marred by credulousness and overly dramatic prose. Greene's admiration and respect for the pilot of the Enola Gay even manages to get in the way of his well-honed investigative skills-- for example, he accepts with little follow-up Tibbets's assertion that he never had any regrets whatsoever about dropping the bomb. And Greene's relentlessly uncritical depictions of Tibbets's seemingly unreflective, unemotional and gruff persona--as well as his nostalgia for traditional values--wears thin. (June) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

Library Journal

According to Greene (Be True to Your School), the man who won World War II was Col. Paul Tibbets, pilot of the Enola Gay--the B-29 bomber that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan in August 1945. Greene, a syndicated columnist for the Chicago Tribune, has created a powerful and poignant tale of his personal relationship with Tibbets from their first meeting in 1998. With the skill and sensitivity of an accomplished journalist, Greene tells of Tibbets's involvement with the planning, training for, and execution of that fateful flight to commit the most violent act in history. More importantly, Greene relates how Tibbets and the surviving members of the aircrew have adjusted to their unwanted notoriety in peacetime. In addition, this book is a heart-wrenching story of Greene's relationship with his dying father, also a World War II veteran. Through Tibbets (who lived near Greene's father), Greene finally comes to understand how his father and the World War II generation came to embrace the true meanings of patriotism, courage, and duty. Strongly recommended for all public libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 2/15/00.]--William D. Bushnell, formerly with USMC, Sebascodegan Island, ME Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\ Read all 7 "From The Critics" >

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