The Enemy Beside Me

Daniel Ziegenfuss is a nineteen-year-old college freshman when Pearl Harbor shatters his idyllic life. Transformed into a U.S. Marine, he is taught a single truth: the enemy is evil. Across the Pacific, Ichiro Shidehara, the son of a renowned Japanese peace activist, struggles within an army that views him with intense suspicion. A "bombardier who won't bomb straight," Ichiro privately vows to support the supremacy of the Emperor and defy the ambitions of the Japanese militarists.When Ichiro is shot down and Daniel saves his life, an unlikely friendship develops despite the complete language barrier and the inherent brutality of war. Told through a series of powerful letters to home, this is a story of courage, patriotism, survival, and the discovery of a shared humanity that no amount of indoctrination can extinguish.