Top 15 Doug Stanton Quotes

Each summer, as Lake Michigan finally begins to warm, I think of the men of the World War II cruiser Indianapolis and the worst disaster at sea in United States naval history. I go down to the lake, and I wonder: How would I have survived what they experienced?

The action of ‘Horse Soldiers’ is back-dropped by the story of how America went to war with little time to prepare – but with a lot of moxie.

When I was writing my first book, ‘In Harm‘s Way,’ I witnessed the sense of sacrifice that those WWII veterans possessed. I was surprised that sometimes their grandchildren hadn’t talked to them about the historic events of that night in July 1945, when the USS Indianapolis went down.

That’s the potential power of a single voice – a neighbor‘s, a teacher‘s, a parent‘s, a friend‘s. It can change you, make you feel as if you have a place in the world.

‘Horse Soldiers’ is the untold story of how a small band of U.S. Special Forces soldiers secretly entered Afghanistan in 2001, just five weeks after September 11, saddled up on horses, and rode to an improbable victory against a vastly larger Taliban and Al Qaeda army.

During the writing of all of my books, I’ve learned that, most of all, people want to know that someone is listening and – this is the tricky part – remembering.

Writing about conflict has provided these dramatic opportunities to talk about really substantial moments in a person‘s life. I’m not writing about superheroes; I’m writing about ordinary people.

One of the reasons I wrote ‘Horse Soldiers’ was to understand the world my children would inherit after the events of 2001.

I like to tell stories about people trying to make the right, difficult decision at the least opportune moment… People in a crucible of an extraordinary circumstance. And then, how that experience changes their life.

As I traveled around the country on a book tour for ‘In Harm’s Way,’ I began learning how certain Indianapolis survivors had heard these voices – not necessarily the voice of God, but often that of someone who had fostered them and imparted an identity as a person who doesn’t quit.

I don’t think it’s healthy to have 68-year-old men, 70-year-old men thinking regularly about a traumatic experience that happened to them and thinking that they cannot talk about it with anybody, and no one wants to listen.

I wanted to write ‘In Harm’s Way’ from the young men‘s point of view of being in a raft, or hanging in a life vest with just their nose poking above the water.

I’m really interested in how people face existential crises and either overcome them or don’t, and in how the human psyche responds.

I’m very dogged and patient.

Traverse City sits halfway between the North Pole and the Equator, and our summer days are long. The light seems to take forever to vanish from the sky, and when it does, it goes out like someone folding a white sheet in the dark. A flare on the horizon. Then a rustle: Goodnight.