Overview

West Germany. Summer, 1971. Four American military kids slip through a base fence before dawn and walk eight kilometers into the German countryside - past dragon's teeth, past a farmer's dog, past the edge of everything they're supposed to know. What they find is a sealed WWII bunker on the old Siegfried Line. What's inside has been waiting twenty-six years: four gold coins, a soldier's Bible, a photograph of a woman whose name no one knows, and scratched deep into the west wall - I was here. I loved her. Written by a man who died in that room the same day he wrote it. On the east wall of the bunker ""KILROY WAS HERE"" is inscribed with an arrow points down. Galen Rodriguez has been trying to write this story for fifty years. He's tried and stopped, tried and stopped, because every time he starts, Bobby's face comes back - the way it looked that summer, twelve years old and carrying something no twelve-year-old should have to carry. The way it looked when he smiled, just once, in a limestone shelter during a thunderstorm, talking about his dead brother. Some secrets aren't meant to be kept. Only carried for a while. The Summer of '71 is a story about four boys, a promise made in the dark, a one-armed German farmer who asked only one question in return for everything he gave, and the fifty years it took one man to finally write it all down.

Full Product Details

9798992465556

Table of Contents

Reviews

Author Information

Hector M. Rodriguez grew up as a military brat, living and moving across the world before putting down roots in the Pacific Northwest. He is the author of ten books spanning memoir, literary fiction, children's literature, and experimental prose, including The Awkward Optimist: A Guide to Human Connection, The Path Taken - a memoir of the Camino de Santiago - and The Most Excellent Adventures of Bang and Clang, a children's series about two raccoon brothers navigating the moral questions of growing up. He spent a long career with the U.S. Department of Energy before turning full-time to writing and community. He teaches life story writing at Linn-Benton Community College, hosts The Write Time: Inkwell Interviews - a podcast dedicated to conversations with authors about the craft and purpose of storytelling - and leads children's literacy initiatives through the Kiwanis Sunrisers of Corvallis, Oregon, where he served as president and was named 2025 Kiwanian of the Year. He is a former Scoutmaster and merit badge counselor with Scouting America, and in 2024 fulfilled a fifty-three-year promise to himself by completing a twelve-day trek at Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico. The Summer of '71 is his most personal novel - a tribute to every child who grew up between countries, every soldier who kept a long vigil in a cold place, and every friend who was lost too soon. He lives in Oregon. Find him at hectorsbooks.com or on Facebook.

Tab Content 6

Countries Available