“This is the combat narrative of a young man who never saw action overseas. Ellis signs up for special military duty early in the Cold War and finds himself in a secret world of nuclear weapons research and development. Cut off by security restrictions from friends and family, he must confront his growing sense of revulsion, shame, guilt, and outrage at the preparations his country is making for wars of the future. Reporting the moral mayhem at the front lines of the burgeoning arms race with the Soviet Union, the author describes conditions that produce post-traumatic stress as surely as the loss of buddies and body parts in the fog of war. Bob Ellis entered the Army as ‘an uneducated and rebellious but somewhat intelligent country boy’ in his own words, but he came out as a fearless bugler blowing retreat from the nuclear madness of our time.”
—Christopher Queen, Harvard University
“What an extraordinary accomplishment Bob Ellis has in NUKED : A G.I. Memoir. I am blown away by the expanse and detail of Bob’s memory, by his facility with language—both concrete descriptive detail and more abstract, meditative lyricism. And I am struck by the courage of his undertaking, a journey of moral suffering and extraordinary courage that should inspire all who live under the nuclear cloud. A riveting and unforgettable Pilgrim’s Progress for our own time — both in its conception and the persistence to see it through to the end.”
—Margo Culley, Professor of English Emerita, UMass
