Ordinary Heroes is a narrative, nonfiction account of World War II as told through the perspective of veterans who served in various theatres of the conflict. Beginning with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and ending sometime after V-J Day, the book recounts the soldiers’ experiences at home and abroad, describing in detail what it was like to be at war. The stories are pulled from interviews conducted by the authors, which were verified and assembled into a timeline. Thus, the tales are presented chronologically as the war progresses.
Stylistically, Ordinary Heroes resembles a novel, as it is written from a third-person limited perspective and often forgoes sweeping historical commentary in favor of internal dialogue and introspection. Its focus lies squarely upon the shoulders of the characters and their personal experiences.
Of the sixty-plus men and women in the book, the majority are originally from – or currently reside in – Berks County, Pennsylvania, in the United States.
Famous quotes containing the words ordinary and/or heroes:
“My residence was more favorable, not only to thought, but to serious reading, than a university; and though I was beyond the range of the ordinary circulating library, I had more than ever come within the influence of those books which circulate round the world, whose sentences were first written on bark, and are now merely copied from time to time on to linen paper.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We talk about a representative government; but what a monster of a government is that where the noblest faculties of the mind, and the whole heart, are not represented! A semihuman tiger or ox, stalking over the earth, with its heart taken out and the top of its brain shot away. Heroes have fought well on their stumps when their legs were shot off, but I never heard of any good done by such a government as that.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)