Dear Mr. President

"Dear Mr. President introduces a cast of conflicted characters whose efforts to cope with their experiences at war are both funny and tragic. In "The Cure as I Found It," an army infantryman who fought along the Highway of Death returns home with a form of Gulf War Syndrome and a great deal of guilt. He practices getting into Heaven through visualization. In the title story, "Dear Mr. President" a Gulf War vet appeals to the first President Bush for help after his wife decides she has had enough. In "Cross-Dresser," a stealth fighter pilot in the neuropsych ward of a VA hospital begs to be re-admitted to active duty, after justifying, with impeccable logic, his recent behavior. In "Notes from a Bunker Along Highway 8," a Green Beret assigned to the task of hunting SCUDs around Baghdad deserts his team after seeing a strange vision. He takes up residence with a fellow soldier in a deserted Iraqi bunker, where he proceeds to give medical aid to refugees, only to discover that being helpful is more complicated than he may have anticipated."--BOOK JACKET.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Fiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.