Meet OUR Team

Barbara Harrison and Andrew Carroll will be appearing on national and local (Washington, DC) television and radio shows to share war letters and promote BEHIND THE LINES. These appearances will be timed with the launch of the podcast and special remembrance days and holidays that honor veterans.

Andrew Carroll’s war letters project has received enormous national and local publicity since it began in 1998, including this ABC News story that captures the spirit and covers the most important aspects of the project. The project continues to generate positive coverage. For example, the Smithsonian magazine has a story about the project and in the spring of 2020, the Military Officers Association of American Magazine carried this piece.

The fact that the BTL podcast is part of a larger initiative to honor and remember U.S. troops, veterans and their families, will make it, in itself, newsworthy. In addition, the BTL team will be active on Facebook and Twitter which will become popular forums for veterans and their families, historians and the listening public.

“Andrew Carroll has given America a priceless treasure. These letters are intimate, deeply personal portraits of the courage, sacrifice, and sense of duty that made this country. They remind us that greatness borne on the shoulders of the ordinary men and women who love their country and each other.”

— Tom Brokaw, current NBC News commentator, former anchor of the NBC Nightly News, and author of the New York Times bestseller The Greatest Generation

“These war letters are more deeply moving, more revelatory, and more powerful than any dispatch from the front. It’s the truly felt history of what war is all about.”

— Studs Terkel, historian and author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Good War

“Andrew Carroll has assembled a collection of previously unpublished letters that run the gamut of wartime emotion. An excellent compilation that I enjoyed reading very much—and believe you will, too.”

— John Glenn, senator, World War II and Korean War fighter pilot, and astronaut (Glenn was the first American to orbit the earth)

“In the sweep of history, the experience of the lone soldier is often lost, but in this breathtaking collection the individual voices of the men and women who have served this nation come to life with a power and an eloquence that is both gripping and unforgettable. I can think of no better way to understand the horrors of war than to read the words of those who have been caught in its grasp, and these extraordinary letters offer some of the most dramatic eyewitness accounts of war imaginable. Quite simply, this is one of the greatest, most riveting books of war letters I have ever read.”

— Stephen E. Ambrose, bestselling military historian and founder of the National World War II Museum

“Behind the Lines is an extraordinary achievement, a compendium of voices at once immediate and timeless, heart-breaking and entertaining. Andrew Carroll bears witness to cataclysm by allowing participants to speak for themselves, achieving an evocative power rare even in the best war literature.”

— Rick Atkinson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943

“In all my years of military service, I don't believe I have ever read a book that has moved me as profoundly as this one. While it is often the generals and military leaders who receive the limelight, Andrew Carroll's Behind the Lines reminds us that it is the individual troops in the field and their loved ones at home who most deserve our admiration and attention. Behind the Lines is a candid look at the fierce realities of warfare, but it is also a lasting tribute to those who have fought—and continue to fight—for freedom. I cannot recommend this book more highly.”

— Lieutenant General Claudia Kennedy, US Army, the (then) highest ranking woman in the history of the American armed forces

“There are two vastly different ways of studying war. One has to do with the great story of history and of nations, the other with dying alone in a field hospital; with missing someone so much it aches; with wrestling down fear and shoring up courage; or enduring war’s squalor and absurdity. Andrew Carroll studies the human side of war in this stirring, moving, and sometimes hilarious collection. Behind the Lines is a tribute to the human spirit.”

— Mark Bowden, author of the New York Times bestseller Black Hawk Down

“This book is more than a collection of newly-discovered war letters. There is something deeper, richer, and more intense at work here. Each letter is extraordinary in its own right, but together they illuminate war as it is rarely seen. Most importantly, Behind the Lines is the result of Andrew Carroll's unprecedented trip around the world to seek out these gripping, insightful, and, in so many cases, breathtaking letters. This is a book born of great passion. This is a book with tremendous heart and soul.”

— James Bradley, author of the New York Times bestsellers Flags of Our Fathers and Flyboys

“From the American Revolution to Iraq, everything is here: the terror and exhilaration of bloody combat, love letters, funny letters, letters from civilians caught in the middle of war. Behind the Lines is worth savoring; you can dip into it at any page and find something fascinating.”

— Joseph L. Galloway, co-author of We Were Soldiers Once...and Young and Triumph Without Victory: The History of the Persian Gulf War

“This book is absolutely majestic. The letters may be about war, but taken together they are about far more than conflict. They provide an unblinking look at the best and worst that human beings can do to each other, and in so doing transcend themselves. They become the colors with which Andrew Carroll has created a kind of historical art.”

— McKay Jenkins, author of The Last Ridge: The Epic Story of America's First Mountain Soldiers and the Assault on Hitler's Europe

“There is nothing more powerful than words written when life as you know it hangs in the balance. From soldiers on the front lines writing to sweethearts and family, to resistance fighters and so many others in the midst of war and its aftermath, Behind The Lines has letters from every conflict since the Revolution representing just about every race and many different cultures. This book is phenomenal and a must read.”

— Yvonne Latty, author of We Were There: Voices of African American Veterans from World War II to the War in Iraq