Author: Dennis W. Shepherd

             From Bagdad, Kentucky...                           ...To Baghdad, Iraq (and back)

The march to Baghdad, Iraq in 2003 was a military operation like no other. High tech weapons and old fashioned Marine infantry combined to lead coalition forces to victory in twenty-one days.  RETURNING SON is the true story of Private Sean Cassedy, a cyberspace generation warrior, coming from a tiny Kentucky town with the unlikely name of Bagdad.  Son is war from the eyes of a grunt as well as the emotional war for loved ones back home.  Sean left for Marine boot camp one week to the day after the tragedy of 9/11.  He survived boot camp’s ultimate test--the Crucible--only to be tested in the crucible of his own court-martial.  During Operation Iraqi Freedom both of Sean’s legs were crushed in a fog of war accident within a hundred miles from Baghdad. As one of Kentucky’s first injured veterans, Sean’s homecoming was as inspirational as his father’s homecoming from Vietnam was depressing.