Why write about a hero lost in 1944?

My Uncle’s friend, Bill Moomey, was delighted to see this photo of his platoon sergeant, Irvin Weaver, of the weapons platoon, Company E, 262nd Infantry Regiment, and his friend Carl Bonde at R.

Vis-a-vis my PFC Carl Bonde book, I liked Timequakes by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.  I liked his notion that history is like a distant mountain range.  You can see all of the times from afar and even visit different times forward and backward, as though selecting and climbing one of the mountains in the range.  My problem is that I am writing a biography and simultaneously writing about my own efforts to uncover the facts of Uncle Bud’s life.  I know why I am writing a story that I would love to read myself.  I am telling good news.

The good news is that although the iron doors of history seemed to have closed forever, sealing up my Uncle Bud—lost at sea so long ago—they were not airtight.  Turns out that the facts are much more powerful than years, distance, even death.

During the same time I was pushing into the sea of information on the Internet, unseen others were pushing toward me.  For example, my uncle Bud’s Army friend Bill Moomey had, for many years, wanted to reach someone from his late friend’s family.  My eventual phone call to him in 2005 was a fulfillment of lasting desire.