Christine Kohler

Sep 20, 2013 9:31 AM EDT

I'm grateful that you see how war is almost genetic in the way the after effects are handed down to subsequent generations. I believe this too and it's one of the reasons I am so passionate about peace!

More and more my writing seems to be about war and peace.

- Joyce Moyer Hostetter

Sep 24, 2013 11:31 AM EDT

I, too, am passionate about peace. "Blessed are the peacemakers." Matt.

When I was studying Shoichi Yokoi's ordeal surviving in the jungles of Guam for 28 years after WWII, and then wrote about this experience through my fictional character Isamu Seto, I didn't think about looking at symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress. Yet, once the story was done, and I was reading it in the editing stage for my publisher, it became very clear to me that Seto certainly suffered from extreme PTS.

In NO SURRENDER SOLDIER the different characters show a complex web of how war has affected them all, even Kiko who is 15 and has not lived through a war. It also shows how character is formed by the war, some remain bitter, some afraid, yet some have the courage to break the bonds and courageously move forward in life, living it in kindness and compassion. This is a cross-roads Kiko faces from the first chapter on--how will he deal with the after-effects of war?

- Christine Kohler