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Weekend Recs: War Fiction

Happy Friday, Wildcats! Falvey Library is delivering you another semester of Weekend Recs, a blog dedicated to filling you in on what to read, listen to, and watch over the weekend. Annie, a graduate assistant from the Communication department, scours the internet, peruses the news, and digs through book stacks to find new, relevant, and thought-provoking content that will challenge you and prepare you for the upcoming week.

War is something that seems to always hold a place in our collective consciousness. Consequently, war is the subject of countless books, movies, shows, and other media. Even excluding all the nonfictional accounts, war fiction is a thriving and seemingly inescapable genre.

In honor of Veterans Day this Saturday, Nov. 11, this weekend’s recs will explore war fiction and highlight some of the standouts in the genre with some nonfiction Veterans Day recs along the way.

Content warning: due to the subject matter, the majority of the films recommended are rated R.

If you have 5 minutes…and are a veteran, scroll through this list of Veterans Day freebies you can enjoy this weekend.

Bonus: if you’re a veteran, make sure to check out Villanova’s Office of Veterans and Military Service Members.

If you have 10 minutes…and want to learn more about the history of Veterans Day, read this article.

Bonus: check out this Q&A-style guide to Veterans Day.

If you have 15 minutes…and want to learn more about an issue that disproportionately impacts veterans, read this article about veteran homelessness.

If you have 45 minutes and 55 seconds…and want to know how realistic many of these war fiction films are, watch this video of veterans and military service members rating their accuracy.

If you have 2 hours and 33 minutes…and want to watch one of the most prolific yet somewhat controversial Vietnam war films, watch Apocalypse Now, available in Falvey’s DVD Collection.

Bonus: if you want to watch an incredibly brutal war movie based on a true story, watch Hacksaw Ridge. It follows the story of pacifist Pfc. Desmond T. Doss, played by Andrew Garfield, who was drafted into WWII and served as an army medic and earned a Medal of Honor. This movie is incredibly harrowing, but it’s truly worth watching at least once.

If you have 2 hours and 34 minutes…and love Spike Lee films, watch Da Bloods 5. This follows a group of Black Vietnam War veterans who return to Vietnam to retrieve the body of their fallen commander and, in a treasure hunt of sorts, to retrieve the gold they found and buried in battle.

If you have 2 hours and 49 minutes…and haven’t seen it yet, watch Saving Private Ryan, available in Falvey’s DVD Collection. Perhaps it was just me, but this is the first war movie I remember watching as a child, and it stuck with me.

Bonus: if you want to watch a PG-13 war movie (a somewhat rare occurrence due to the subject matter), watch War Horse, available in Falvey’s DVD Collection.

If you have 6 hours…and prefer books, read All Quiet on the Western Front, available at Falvey. No, it wasn’t just an award-winning movie from the 2023 awards season. It was adapted from this classic novel set in WWI.


Annie Stockmal is a second-year graduate student in the Communication Department and Graduate Assistant in Falvey Library.


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Recommended Reading: Remembering the 75th Anniversary of D-Day

Remembering the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion in Normandy, June 6, 1944, Falvey Memorial Library Staff shared their recommended reading on the battle and World War II.

sophie scholl and the white roseGeoff Scholl: Sophie Scholl and the White Rose by Annette Dumbach and Jud Newborn

Dave Burke: Stalingrad by Anthony Beevor; Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Michael Foight: Manzanar by Peter Wright, photography by Ansel Adams

Sarah Wingo: City of Thieves by David Benioff

Linda HauckAll The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

Marianne Watson: Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand unbroken

Darren Poley: The Myth of Hitler’s Pope: Pope Pius XII And His Secret War Against Nazi Germany by David Dalin

The Night Trilogy: Night, Dawn, Day  by Elie Wiesel

On Trial at Nuremberg by Airey Neave

Helmet for My Pillow: From Parris Island to the Pacific by Robert Leckie

Run Silent, Run Deep by Edward Beach

The Shadow of His Wings: The True Story of Fr. Gereon Goldmann, OFM by Gereon Goldmann

The Great Escape by Paul Brickhill

Number the Stars by Lois Lowry

Guadalcanal Diary by Richard Tregaskis

thirty seconds over tokyoThirty Seconds Over Tokyo by Ted W. Lawson and Robert Considine

Letters and Papers from Prison by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan

D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II by Stephen Ambrose

D-Day: The Battle for Normandy by Antony Beevor

The Cruel Sea by Nicholas Monsarrat

At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor by Gordon Prange, Donald Goldstein, and Katherine Dillon

Miracle at Midway by Gordon Prange, Donald Goldstein, and Katherine Dillon

Mister Roberts: Play in Two Acts by Thomas Heggen and Joshua Logan

The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial: A Drama In Two Acts by Herman Wouk

Joanne Quinn: Armageddon: A Novel of Berlin by Leon Uris

Maus: A Survivor’s Tale by Art Spiegelman

Shawn Proctor: Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut


Marc Gallicchio, PhD, professor and chair of the Department of History, who was named a winner of the prestigious Bancroft Prize in American History and Diplomacy for his book Implacable Foes: War in the Pacific, 1944-1945, recommended American films that deal with aspects of war not normally captured on film. Below he shares his D-Day film recommendations:

 

The Longest Day (1962) “Offers the most comprehensive multi-national look at the different operations and services involved in bringing off the invasion. The Germans receive even-handed treatment and the scene of thousands of GIs moving ahead on Omaha beach outdoes in power similar scenes from Saving Private Ryan.

“Five directors worked on the film and they employed a star-studded international cast. The movie follows the story presented in Cornelius Ryan’s book of the same name. (Ryan also wrote A Bridge Too Far, which became a very good movie but which gave us one of the most vapid and overused clichés in the English language.)”

 

Saving Private RyanSteven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan (1998) “Best remembered for its first thirty minutes in which viewers find themselves suddenly thrust into the terrifying experience of the GIs on Omaha Beach.

“The remainder of the movie unfolds like an extended episode of the 1960s television show Combat, except that the guest stars aren’t the only ones who get killed.”

 

Sam Fuller’s memoir/movie, The Big Red One (1980) “Has a brief segment on D-Day. The film shows how Fuller’s unit got to Normandy by way of North Africa and Italy and follows it through the campaign in France and into Germany to the end of the war.

“Although the violence does not come close to reaching the Tarantino levels of Saving Private Ryan,  The Big Red One is more disturbing and thought provoking than Spielberg’s blockbuster.”

 

The dark comedy/farce The Americanization of Emily (1964) “Hollywood’s most subversive movie, takes place in England during the build-up for the invasion but concludes with a memorable scene on Omaha Beach.”

 


Kallie Stahl, MA ’17 CLAS, is communication and marketing specialist at Falvey Memorial Library. 


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After a Time of War, a Time to Heal: Get to Know Erin Donnelly, 2019 Falvey Scholar

 

 

Erin Donnelly receives the Falvey Scholar Award from Associate University Librarian for Collections and Stewardship Jeehyun "Jee" Davis.

Erin Donnelly receives the Falvey Scholar Award from Associate University Librarian for Collections and Stewardship Jeehyun “Jee” Davis.

 

BY SHAWN PROCTOR

This is part 1 of a 6-part series featuring the 2019 Falvey Scholars. Read more about them every Tuesday and in the upcoming issue of Mosaic: the library’s bi-annual publication.

 

Scholarly Stats:

Erin Donnelly ’19 FCN

Hometown: Havertown, Pa.

Faculty Mentor: Helene J. Moriarty, PhD, ’77 BSN, RN, PMHCNS-BC, FAAN, Diane L. & Robert F. Moritz Endowed Chair in Nursing Research

Research: Wounds of War: Understanding the Dimensions of Moral Injury from a Health Care Perspective, also presented at Ethics of War and Peace Conference in April, 2019.

Other Honors: Presidential Scholar

In her own words:

Erin’s research:

In the nursing and health care community, there is a lack of literature related to the experience of moral injury in veterans—my project seeks to address this knowledge gap.

Moral injury is a psychological injury that results from “transgressions of deeply held moral and ethical beliefs and expectations” and has been documented in history as early as the warrior culture of Ancient Greece.

Through my literature review, I was able to identify prevalence, risk factors, conceptual models, new theoretical frameworks, and interventions that existed around moral injury. However, after meeting with Dr. Mark Wilson, I realized I would be remiss if I did not expand my knowledge of the pastoral, spiritual, philosophical, and ethical discussions surrounding moral injury to understand it more fully from diverse perspectives.

Part of this process involved seeking evidence on the efficacy of interventions designed to support active service members and veterans struggling with moral injury.

 

Erin’s “Falvey Experience”:

The database access provided by Falvey Memorial Library was essential for my complete review of the literature.

Headshot of Erin DonnellySince research on moral injury is in its infancy, I had to search in many disciplines to find emerging literature. I used CINAHL, PubMed, and ProQuest to find the majority of my scholarly sources. I was also able to cite these sources easily by exporting to RefWorks and using the citation links provided by ProQuest. Villanova gave me access to articles from the journals.

On a more personal note, the fourth floor of the library was a quiet and enjoyable location to read articles and review the books I found.

 

The Impact on Her:

I learned more about the care of our U.S. servicemen and women. Moral injury is an experience that requires care from a variety of disciplines, and I was able to explore multidisciplinary literature throughout this process. I have also learned how to take the primary role of responsibility for a project, while consulting regularly with a mentor.

Using this research, I have been able to apply my findings to my practice and assessment during my leadership clinical at the Corporal Michael J. Crescenz VA Medical Center in Philadelphia. While taking care of veterans in the ICU, I recognized the importance of holistic care and a comprehensive psychological assessment that incorporates moral injury.

 

What’s Next:

I have accepted a position as a Nurse Resident at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital. But, in the long term, this research experience reaffirmed my goal of returning to school for a doctoral degree.


Shawn Proctor

Shawn Proctor, MFA, is communications and marketing program manager at Falvey Memorial Library.


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Last Modified: June 4, 2019

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