As of October, 2026, the manuscript of From the Old U.S. Army to World War Two: One Soldier’s Service has been completed and is with the publisher, Bloomsbury Press. We expect the book to be out mid-2027, though we don’t have an exact date for it yet. The book will be available from the usual online vendors.
Rather than comprising a sweeping history of the war, From the Old U.S. Army is a “contextual biography” that alternates between focusing on the life story of one person, Louis H. Barclay, and the broader contexts that shaped his life: the interwar U.S. Army, the Great Depression, and Second World War. Barclay is unusual in that he enlisted (in 1938) before the U.S. Army was swelled with millions of draftees, federalized National Guardsmen, and the men and women who volunteered in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Barclay’s unusual story provides a take on the war that is all-but-absent from both serious historical and pop-culture interpretations of the war. As the date of publication nears, we will be adding to the blog more frequently.