Duty Bound: One Marine’s Story of World War II and The Cold War

Imagine slowly opening your eyes, feeling confused, and not knowing who you are, where you are, or how you got there. As your consciousness takes over, you suddenly realize that you are in a bed, covered in bandages, and in agonizing pain. Slowly, you figure out that you are in a hospital of some sort, but you cannot remember anything else. That is what happened to Lon Lindsey after a horrific Japanese banzai attack during World War II. After sustaining near life-ending injuries and severe traumatic stress, Lon embarks on a lifelong struggle to recover his psychological equilibrium, while continuing to serve his community and country.Lon’s story begins during the Great Depression on the wind-swept high Wyoming plains, outside Laramie, on a cattle ranch originally homesteaded by his grandfather. Following a childhood of heartbreak and betrayal, Lon joins the Marines in 1943 and fights in the Pacific Theater, where he sustains injuries that require thirteen months of hospitalization. When the war ends, Lon accompanies his mother and his diplomat step-father to the Balkans and serves witness to the Communist takeover of Yugoslavia and Romania.Back in the States, Lon finds fulfillment as a civil servant in Los Alamos, New Mexico, famous for the development of the atomic bomb. As the Cold War heats up, the unique closed community evolves from a semi-military, government town to a more normal city, albeit one where the nation’s most powerful atomic weapons are developed. It is there that Lon finally finds hope and healing.