It is important to acknowledge the thousands who suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and to remember those who died as well as the grief endured by their loved ones. Honoring Specialist Noah Charles Pierce is a way of thanking all those young men and women who gave their lives for their country. Marguerite Guzman Bouvard Author of The Unpredictability of Light These poems and the story that surrounds them speak as eloquently as any of the great works of Remarque or Owen about the raw pain and immense cost of war. We owe it to Noah Charles Pierce and to the families of this war's many victims to take Noah's story into our hearts and dedicate ourselves to being better advocates for peace and greater supporters for the care that will be needed for years to come by those families who have borne the, too often untold, burden of these wars. Kevin Bowen, Ph.D. Author of Eight True Maps of the West: Poems Director of the William Joiner Center for the Study of War and its Social Consequences At the center of this collection of essays, letters, and articles are the vivid poems of Noah Charles Pierce, their heart and soul palpable on the page. American soldier in our Iraq War, he came home haunted by what that war had done to him. These poems help us meet a young man who was alert, kind, attentive, saddened, and in the end, courageously struggling against the odds to hold on. They are Noah's testament of life and for life. Fred Marchant, Ph.D. Author of Full Moon Boat and The Looking House