This tender and moving audiobook by a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist is both a celebration of love and a devastating reminder of the human cost of the war in Iraq.
In 2005, First Sgt. Charles Monroe King began to write what would become a 200-page journal for his son in the event that he did not return from the desert in Iraq. He was killed on October 14, 2006, only one month away from completing his tour of duty. His son, Jordan, was seven months old. A JOURNAL FOR JORDAN is both a father’s letter to his son–a loving mixture of advice and autobiography–and a mother’s attempt to put those words into the context of her life and the love they shared.

This tender and moving audiobook by a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist is both a celebration of love and a devastating reminder of the human cost of the war in Iraq.


From the Compact Disc edition.

One

Dear Jordan,

If you are reading this book, it means that we got through the
sorrowful years, somehow, and that you are old enough to understand
all that I am about to tell you.

You are just ten months old now, but I am writing this for the
young man you will be. By then, you will know that your father was
a highly decorated soldier who was killed in combat in October
2006, when a bomb exploded beneath his armored vehicle in Iraq.
You were six months old.

You will know that he left a journal for you, more than two hundred
pages long, which he handwrote in neat block letters in that hot,
terrifying place. What I want to tell you is how the journal came to be
and what it leaves unsaid about your father and our abiding love.

Before he kissed my swollen stomach and left for the war in
December 2005, your father, U.S. Army First Sergeant Charles
Monroe King, had been preparing for the promise of your new
life and for the possible end of his own. Even before he boarded
that plane headed for danger, I worried that he would be killed. So
I gave him a journal. I hoped he would write a few messages, perhaps
some words of encouragement to you, though you were not
yet born, in case he died before you knew each other.

We did a lot to prepare for the possibility that your father
would miss out on your life, including finding out if you were a
boy or a girl before he left; he was thrilled to have an image of
you in his mind and kept your sonogram pictures in a pocket in
his uniform the whole time he was in Iraq.

And then there was the journal. Writing it would be a way for
your dad to help guide you through life if he did not make it home
to us. He wanted you to know to pick up the check on a date, to
take plenty of pictures on vacations, to have a strong work ethic,
and to pay your bills on time. He wanted to tell you how to deal
with disappointment, to understand the difference between love
and lust, to remember to get on your knees and pray every day.
Most of all, he wanted you to know how much he loved us.

So, late into the night in Iraq, after he had completed dangerous
and often deadly missions, your dad returned hungry and exhausted
to the relative calm of his room and wrote to you before he
slept. His grammar was not perfect and his handwriting at times
suggested that he was tired or rushed. But he put so much thought
into the beautiful messages he wrote, things like:

Be humble about your accomplishments, work harder
than the man next to you, it is all right for boys to cry.
Sometimes crying can release a lot of pain and stress.
Never be ashamed to cry. It has nothing to do with
your manhood.

Your father mailed the journal to me in July 2006, shortly after
one of his young soldiers was killed in an explosion eerily similar to
the one that would claim his own life. He was so shaken after
pulling the young man's body, piece by piece, out of a bombed
tank that he sent the journal to me, unfinished. He had more to say,
but that would have to wait until he came home on a two- week
leave to meet you, six weeks before he died.

I read the journal in the calm of night on the day it arrived, with
you sleeping next to me, and fell in love with my gentle warrior all
over again. He was the most honorable man I have ever known,
and the most complex. I do not want to portray your dad as a saint
whose example you could never live up to. He was not. He was
gentle, benevolent, and loyal, but he could also be moody, stubborn,
and withholding. He would brood for days over a...

 

"This book is a gift, and not only to Jordan."

 

"Heartfelt...Canedy used her skills as a reporter to dig beneath the official story of King's death...These investigative passages are gripping...King died a hero's death, but Canedy's embrace of life is a kind of heroism, too."

 

"Gut-wrenching... Canedy writes with the objective eye of a hard-line reporter yet manages to convey the complexities of the love between her and her fiance as well as the deep loss she feels in his absence. It's impossible to imagine what her pain is like, but she does a beautiful job of allowing us to come close."

 

"Canedy's memoir speaks to military families everywhere...By openly and honestly revealing her side of their highly emotional story as well, by detailing the effects of his death on her and subsequent interactions with government brass about burial and benefits, for example...she gives the project a greater significance, making it especially relevant for and meaningful to countless others in similar situations."

 

"Powerful... Not all great love stories are ignited by the lightning bolt of love at first glance; this humbler I'm-going-to-talk-myself-into-this-good-man version is believable and real....A Journal for Jordan is impossible to read without a sense of bitter knowledge that this principled man fell at the behest of leaders less guided by honor. That is no trick O. Henry ending. It is a denouement full of suffering, worthy of Chekhov."

 

"A hauntingly beautiful account of a family fractured by war...filled with vivid and heartbreaking details...Canedy's talent at evoking character makes the account of King's life and death not simply a story about the injustice of war, but a project in resurrection. Canedy allows King to come alive for her son and, to our benefit, for us...Gripping...important."

 

"It's impossible not to be affected by her story."

 

"At once inspiring and ineffably sad . . . Canedy captures the unique magnificence of the man she loved in a way that brings the beginnings of an understanding to the losses that other families bear."

 

"This tragic story of love and war reminds all Americans that we are fortunate to have people like Sgt. Charles King, willing to die for our country. Dana Canedy bears witness to the enduring power of love, to Sgt. King's heroism and his unfailing devotion to his family and his men."

 

"This book is a living, breathing legacy. It's full of wonderful treasures offered by a unique and spirited father, whose loving words of wisdom to his infant son are a rite of passage that will transform us all. It is written with serene grace: part memoir, part love story, all heart."

 

"Dana Canedy's moving memoir has captured my heart and won't let it go. Courageous in its honesty and at times unsettling, it draws us deep into the soul of a woman in love, the pain of her loss and the unpardonable theft of hopes and dreams, lives and futures stolen by war. With an exquisite voice, Canedy recounts moments of intense emotion that haunt us long after savoring the last lines. I didn't want it to end."

 

A Journal for Jordan by Dana Canedy
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