Sergeant Steve Maharidge returned from World War II an angry man. The only evidence that hed served in the Marines was a photograph of himself and a buddy tacked to the basement wall. On one terrifyingly memorable occasion his teenage son, Dale, witnessed Steve screaming at the photograph: They said I killed him! But I didnt kill him! It wasnt my fault!After Steve died, Dale Maharidge began a twelve-year quest to face down his fathers wartime ghosts. He found more than two dozen members of Love Company, the Marine unit in which his father had served. Many of them, now in their eighties, finally began talking about the war. Theyd never spoken so openly and emotionally, even to their families. Through them, Maharidge brilliantly re-creates Love Companys battles and the war that followed them home. In addition, Maharidge traveled to Okinawa to experience where the man in his fathers picture died and meet the families connected to his fathers wartime souvenirs.

The survivors Dale met on both sides of the Pacific Ocean demonstrate that wars do not end when the guns go quietthe scars and demons remain for decades. Bringing Mulligan Home is a story of fathers and sons, war and postwar, silence and cries in the dark. Most of all it is a tribute to soldiers of all warspast and presentand the secret burdens they, and their families, must often bear.