Johnny Pail Face

A biography that spans almost a century, the book is the story of 97-year-old Johnny Pail Face, a Native American born on a Navajo reservation in New Mexico. His life’s journey began in the Old West and led him to soldier in three wars and to not one but two brushes with genocide in a single lifetime. In the first, his Native American people were the victims. In the second, he fought with gun and bayonet alongside fellow G.I.s against Hitler’s war machine and came out the victor. The first genocide left him crazy with anger, the second crazy with despair. It took him two more wars to work things out. Through it all, he struggled against the demons of depression and alcoholism to ultimately find the best pieces of what it means to be a human being within himself and to make peace with a troubled world.