This is a terrific book for people who lived through the war and for those who are too young to remember it. It's not violent, or horrific, but it gives a real flavor of what it was like to be an ordinary young grad student from Missouri who, by various twists and turns, ended up flying the very first flag over Japan at the end of World War II. Miller is a plain-speaking but deeply thoughtful writer, and he relies on his diary entries and letters to paint the scene and the ordinary people he worked with and give the reader a real sense of having been there too.