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    A Journal for Jordan: A Story of Love and Honor
    Unavailable
    A Journal for Jordan: A Story of Love and Honor
    Unavailable
    A Journal for Jordan: A Story of Love and Honor
    Audiobook (abridged)5 hours

    A Journal for Jordan: A Story of Love and Honor

    Written by Dana Canedy

    Narrated by Dana Canedy

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    In 2005, First Sergeant Charles Monroe King began to write what would become a two-hundred-page journal for his son in case he did not make it home from the war in Iraq. Charles King, forty-eight, was killed on October 14, 2006, when an improvised explosive device detonated under his Humvee on an isolated road near Baghdad. His son, Jordan, was seven months old.

    A Journal for Jordan is a mother's letter to her son-fierce in its honesty-about the father he lost before he could even speak. It is also a father's advice and prayers for the son he will never know.

    A father figure to the soldiers under his command, Charles moved naturally into writing to his son. In neat block letters, he counseled him on everything from how to withstand disappointment and deal with adversaries to how to behave on a date. And he also wrote, from his tent, of recovering a young soldier's body, piece by piece, from a tank-and the importance of honoring that young man's life. He finished the journal two months before his death while home on a two-week leave, so intoxicated with love for his infant son that he barely slept.

    Finally, this is the story of Dana and Charles together-two seemingly mismatched souls who loved each other deeply. She was a Pulitzer Prize-winning editor for the New York Times who struggled with her weight. He was a decorated military officer with a sculpted body who got his news from television. She was impatient, brash, and cynical about love. He was excruciatingly shy and stubborn, and put his military service before anything else. In these pages, we relive with Dana the slow unfolding of their love, their decision to become a family, the chilling news that Charles has been deployed to Iraq, and the birth of their son.

    In perhaps the most wrenching chapter in the book, Dana recounts her search for answers about Charles's death. Unsatisfied with the army's official version of what happened and determined to uncover the truth, she pored over summaries of battalion operations reports and drew on her well-honed reporting skills to interview the men who were with Charles on his last convoy, his commanding officers, and other key individuals. In the end, she arrived at an account of Charles's death-and his last days in his battalion-that was more difficult to face than the story she had been told, but that affirmed the decency and courage of this warrior and father.

    A Journal for Jordan is a tender introduction, a loving good-bye, a reporter's inquiry into her soldier's life, and a heartrending reminder of the human cost of war.


    From the Hardcover edition.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateDec 30, 2008
    ISBN9780739358610
    Unavailable
    A Journal for Jordan: A Story of Love and Honor

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    Reviews for A Journal for Jordan

    3.5/5

    15 ratings3 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I appreciate First Sergeant King's service and many sacrifices during his long and distinguished enlistment in the US Armed Forces. I also appreciate the author sharing her personal memories and grief with us as she continues to navigate the very demanding role of a bereaved woman managing a demanding career while single parenting a toddler son. Canedy, who is military child who grew into a Pulitzer Prize winning civilian, gives a fair and balanced account of her sometimes frustrating and sometimes beautiful encounters with military life--a rare occurrence in modern books detailing military casualties. The family photographs were a welcome addition and did much to humanize her and her son's story. Her foresight in gifting the fatherhood journal was admirable and I believe First Sergeant King was fortunate to have his story and offspring left in such capable hands.
    • 1/5
      Adult nonfiction. Someone else might really love this book, but I didn't. Journalists always think we want to read whatever story they have to tell, and they take their sweet time telling it, too. Sometimes we do want to read it, but I just couldn't bring myself to care about this one (though the mother's letters to her son in regards to his deceased dad probably do make a good story). I had wanted to read more of what the dad had to say (for he also wrote letters to the son--in fact, a whole book full of them, and unlike the journalist ma, he had experienced the war in person, and had taken the time to record what he would have wanted to say to his son had he survived), and I didn't want to have to wade through the long-winded slush to find it. I don't know if it would have been appropriate to publish his writings, anyway, as it was intended for his son, but it would have been a lot more interesting.
    • 5/5
      I listened to the audio book edition of "A Journal for Jordan" and I enjoyed it very much. From the first couple of words I was drawn in by the warmth and strength of Dana's voice. I felt as if I was listening to a good friend telling me her personal story. And what a moving story it was. Dana Canedy recounts the unfolding love story between her and First Sergeant Charles Monroe King. She tells us about their days of courtship, their plans to marry and the conception of their son Jordan. And finally, she shares the pain that Charles untimely death in Iraq caused her and all of his family.Thankfully Charles left behind a journal for his infant son, which he had started during his deployment. His journal entries build the foundation for the book. In them, he counsels his son on everything from dating to becoming a respectable human being. Throughout the book you can just feel the love that the author, her fiancé and their son shared. And you can't help but join in the mourning of their fallen soldier. I was at times crying so hard that I had to take a break from listening. Yet at other times the author made me laugh out loud with some of her witty observations. Canedy’s way with words is marvelous. And I think she created a gift for Jordan that he will forever treasure. If only every child of a fallen soldier could have a book like this.