Closing the Circle

Tommy Marshall was eighteen when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and he enlisted anxious to seek revenge but the Army assigned him to a finance job in London where he languished as others fought the enemy. A chance encounter with Eisenhower landed Tommy in a combat unit and he found himself amongst those storming Omaha Beach on D-Day. What Tommy witnessed would change him forever; the loss of comrades creating a killing frenzy and heroics that won him the Congressional Medal of Honor.<P> After the war Tommy tried to fit back into an America that was distancing itself from the scars of war. He married started a family and a career and pursued his newly won American dream. But that dream ultimately became a nightmare as his wife and son died and his career ended in bitterness.<P>Years later when Tommy entered the old soldier's home in Washington D.C. he was resolved to spend his final years as a recluse. But when he returned to France for the 50th anniversary of D-Day his perspective changed when he found the graves of his wartime buddies in Normandy and challenged himself to enjoy a life they had been denied.<P>This is a story of the hope and promise wrought from war of how its lessons changed those who fought it and how a younger generation has much to learn from those who sacrificed for our prosperity and freedom.