Duty: A Father, His Son, and the Man Who Won the War

By Bob Greene

When Bob Greene went home to central Ohio to be with his dying father, it set off a chain of events that led him to knowing his dad in a way he never had before—thanks to a quiet man who lived just a few miles away, a man who had changed the history of the world.

Greene's father—a soldier with an infantry division in World War II—often spoke of seeing the man around town. All but anonymous even in his own city, carefully maintaining his privacy, this man, Greene's father would point out to him, had "won the war." He was Paul Tibbets. At the age of twenty-nine, at the request of his country, Tibbets assembled a secret team of 1,800 American soldiers to carry out the single most violent act in the history of mankind. In 1945 Tibbets piloted a plane—which he called Enola Gay, after his mother—to the Japanese city of Hiroshima, where he dropped the atomic bomb.

On the morning after the last meal he ever ate with his father, Greene went to meet Tibbets. What developed was an unlikely friendship that allowed Greene to discover things about his father, and his father's generation of soldiers, that he never fully understood before.

Duty is the story of three lives connected by history, proximity, and blood; indeed, it is many stories, intimate and achingly personal as well as deeply historic. In one soldier's memory of a mission that transformed the world—and in a son's last attempt to grasp his father's ingrained sense of honor and duty—lies a powerful tribute to the ordinary heroes of an extraordinary time in American life.

What Greene came away with is found history and found poetry—a profoundly moving work that offers a vividly new perspective on responsibility, empathy, and love. It is an exploration of and response to the concept of duty as it once was and always should be: quiet and from the heart. On every page you can hear the whisper of a generation and its children bidding each other farewell.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Mar 17, 2009
• ISBN: 9780061741418

Bob Greene

Bob Greene is an exercise physiologist and certified personal trainer specializing in fitness, metabolism, and weight loss. He holds a master's degree from the University of Arizona and is a member of the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Council on Exercise. For the past seventeen years he has worked with clients and consulted on the design and management of fitness, spa, and sports medicine programs. Bob has been a guest on the Oprah Winfrey Show. He is also a contributing writer and editor for O the Oprah magazine, and writes articles on health and fitness for Oprah.com. Greene is the bestselling author of The Best Life Diet Cookbook, The Best Life Diet, Revised and Updated, The Best Life Diet, The Best Life Diet Daily Journal, The Total Body Makeover, Get With the Program!, The Get With the Program! Daily Journal, The Get With the Program! Guide to Good Eating, and Make the Connection.

Reviews for Duty

[kslade-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Good book on veterans and knowing the man who flew the first atomic bomb mission after the war.

[lamour_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Greene is a columnist at the Chicago Tribune as well as a broadcast journalist. This book is about his father who is dying, a man he has never been close to. Greene does remember that his father came home once and told him that he had seen the man who had won the Second World War in the grocery store. That man was Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the Enola Gay which dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.Greene meets Tibbets and they become friends. As Greene tells us about his meetings with Tibbets, he also includes excerpts from his father's recorded memoir of his service in Italy during WW II. Thus we read about the contributions and views of two American soldiers from the last 'good war".Tibbets is an interesting man with strong views on where America is today. Greene asks him about the morality of dropping the bomb and Tibbets as well as the other two surviving members of the Enola Gay's crew explain they were just doing their job and because they were successful, the war ended much sooner than it otherwise would have saving many thousands of American and Japanese lives.Greene uses an anecdotal style which makes the book entertaining but does result in some repetition at times. Still it is a very entertaining and informative read.

[zimbawilson · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a great multi part story told masterfully by Bob Greene. It is the story of both his father's service in WWII and interviews with Paul Tibbets the pilot/commander of the Enola Gay that dropped the A-Bomb on Hiroshima. It is more than just war stories however. It is also about fathers, sons and changing times and generations.

[jimmaclachlan · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I had more time than I'd like to read this past weekend & read this book. The first 1/3 didn't really pull me in, but after that it did. The book is a first hand look by Greene at his father's death, with whom he'd never communicated well. His father defined much of his life by his experience in WWII. While unimpressed by most people, Greene's father held the heroes of WWII in very high esteem, especially Paul Tibbets, the man who assembled & led the team that delivered the atomic bombs to Japan. He also was the pilot for the first bomb, the one dropped on Hiroshima. Young Greene meets Tibbets & in learning his story, learns more about his father than he'd ever known before.The story is several entwined & well done. We learn about both Greenes, their relationships & history. We also learn about the men that fought in WWII, especially Tibbets, a very tough man who held one of the toughest jobs in history. How he met the challenge & why he was able to are very interesting.

[kcslade · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Thinking about WWII vets and Paul Tibbets in particular. He was a humble ordinary guy in Ohio and yet he flew Enola Gay to help end the war at Hiroshima.