Stand in the Fire

From the first shot fired by his grandfather on a jungle trail in 1903 to the day his father captured plans for the Chinese invasion of South Korea, William Crawford Woods’s family has fought in nearly every American war of the twentieth century. Drawing on his family’s letters, journals, official records, and other artifacts found in his grandmother’s attic, Woods has revived their stories—accounts of his grandfather, who served in the Philippine War and World War I; of his uncle, who rose from