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Our Latest Book

Randy & Roxanne weave together a tale with the greatest amount of context, delivering an astounding awareness of the incredible stress of combat—both on the combatants and the “folks back home.” The story is a real-time chronicling of the impact of the war on all concerned—family, friends, and the community where Dick Wolfe grew up—written with a simple eloquence that puts flesh on the skeleton of understanding of war’s pervasive and lasting effects.
Taken from the book’s foreword, written by Gary E. May

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Summer Wind: A Soldier's Road from Indiana to Vietnam is available for order from:

Our Writing

If there is a constant theme in the books and history articles we love to write, it centers on two things: the heroic actions of common ordinary people when placed in extraordinary circumstances and the sacredness found in common, everyday moments in life. Nowhere have we found the first item more prominent than in the stories of common soldiers, enlisted men from the Korean and Vietnam wars, who found themselves immersed in the violent upheaval of combat. Our books and articles have also looked at the common people of Indiana and the Midwest in terms of frontier political and religious culture, labor history, Hoosier African-American communities, the Underground Railroad in Indiana, and even a most unusual ghoulish story that involved grave robbing, murder, and an act of social injustice perpetrated against a New England doctor who ran afoul of one frontier Hoosier community. These are stories that have been missed or dismissed by historians, stories we love bringing to life, stories that show that truth is indeed stranger than fiction.

Meet the Authors

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Randy

An Indiana and Midwest historian and author, Randy Mills is a professor of the social sciences at Oakland City University in Oakland City, Indiana. He is the co-author, with his wife, Roxanne, of Unexpected Journey: A Marine Corps Reserve Company in the Korean War, the well-received case study of the call-up of Marine Reservists during the Korean conflict, published by the Naval Institute Press.

He has written two other military history books on the experiences of common soldiers in combat who are faced with extraordinary circumstances: Honoring Those who Paid the Price: Forgotten Voices of the Korean War, published by the Indiana Historical Society Press, and Troubled Hero: A Medal of Honor, Vietnam, and the War at Home, published by Indiana University Press.

He is also the author of a biography of Indiana’s first governor, Jonathan Jennings, published by the Indiana Historical Society, and a book on Midwest frontier religious history: Christ Tasted Death for Every Man: The Story of America’s Frontier General Baptists.

Randy’s numerous articles on Indiana and Midwest history have been featured in magazines and journals such as:

  • Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History
  • Indiana Magazine of History
  • Journal for the Indiana Academy of the Social Sciences
  • Journal for the Liberal Arts and Sciences
  • Ohio Valley History
  • Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society
  • American Baptist Quarterly
  • Connections: The Hoosier Genealogist.
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Roxanne

Roxanne Mills is an author and an Associate Professor of English at Oakland City University in Oakland City, Indiana. Her writing interests include fiction and dramatic non-fiction, as well as the improvement of college student writing. She is the co-author, with her husband Randy, of Unexpected Journey: A Marine Corps Reserve Company in the Korean War, the well-received case study of the call-up of Marine Reservists during the Korean conflict, published by the Naval Institute Press.

She is also the author of numerous professional articles on English education and regional Indiana history. These articles have been featured in journals and magazine such as:

  • Journal for the Liberal Arts and Sciences
  • Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History
  • Indiana Magazine of History
  • American Secondary Education
  • Education
  • College Student Journal
  • The Social Studies

Two of her most recent works, “The Court Martial of an Indiana Marine in Vietnam,” and “With Complete Disregard for his own Personal Safety: Adventures in Writing Accurate Accounts of Military Combat,” appear in special military history issues of the Journal for the Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Get Your Copy of Summer Wind

Randy & Roxanne would love to share this story with you.  Order your copy from your favorite online or local bookseller.