More than four decades ago, my father, Lee H. Miller, sat down at an old typewriter to write the book you’re about to read. A few years had passed since he’d returned as a 1st Lieutenant from the Korean War — enough time, he thought, to give him some perspective on what had happened to him there.

Possessing a keen memory, he set out to write a book about war that was very different from so many he had read. While working long hours and raising a family, he stayed up until the wee hours of the morning for two years working on a manuscript. After completing it, he spent a couple of more years tweaking the novel with a publisher.

The book was on the verge of being published in the late 1960s when the Vietnam War turned nasty, and the sentiment of many in the American public turned harshly against the U.S. military. In this climate, the publisher decided against printing the novel. My father was extremely disappointed, and he buried the manuscript away. Being only a child at the time, I didn’t even know the book existed.

But by the late 1980s, and especially following the Gulf War, the attitude of Americans toward the military changed dramatically. Encouraged by this, my father planned to again pursue publication of his book when he retired in September 1991. But almost immediately after retirement, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and died 5 months later, never realizing his dream of seeing the novel published.

Several years after his death, my mother gave me his original manuscript. When I read it, I was astonished to learn what my father had seen and endured while in Korea. I decided then and there that I wanted to fulfill his dream and get the book published. I felt as if I’d opened a 50-year time capsule from one of the bloodiest wars in American history, a war that most Americans know little about.

The casualty figures speak for themselves — an estimated four million deaths, both military and civilian, during the war. Among U.S. forces, 36,578 were killed in Korea (17,677 more died out of theater) and 103,284 wounded during a three year period. As awful as these combat figures are, my father chose not to begin his book with a bloody battle scene. Instead, he opens with something that’s not often written about — the psychological impact on young soldiers of arriving in a foreign land that is totally alien to them.

Though the GI’s landing in Korea encountered a very ancient culture, they were also met by the sights and smells of desperate poverty and deprivation. Yet this ugliness was in sharp contrast to the beauty of a land that was often visually stunning. This almost certainly had a sobering effect on all of these young Americans, as it did on my father. So, in his novel, he felt it important to first paint the backdrop upon which unfolds the incredible experiences that follow.

Contemporary books and movies about war often center on the dramatic and gory encounters of warfare. Though my father certainly experienced his share of those and includes them in the book, they are not his main focus because that is not what soldiers in war spend the majority of their time doing. Rather, he reveals the powerful, compelling, enduring, and sometimes unlikely relationships that develop between men in combat — the fierce loyalties, the personality clashes, the turf battles, the private ordeals, the outrageous incidents, and the often outlandish characters involved — all the aspects that make the drama of war so strangely intoxicating.

He writes of the things which young foot soldiers confront: miserable weather, equipment shortages, ridiculous orders, hilarious capers, deadly blunders, narrow escapes, and of course, the bitter realities of battle.

He also addresses some harrowing questions about combat: What goes through the mind and heart of a soldier the moment he sees his best friend blown apart? How does he summon courage when he must charge into a hail of gunfire just after seeing a previous wave of men gunned down? What does a soldier do when he freezes in combat and can’t force himself to move? How does a young officer in his 20s, who’s never led men into battle in his life, deal with the sudden reality of a platoon of men anxiously looking at him for strength and leadership in a desperate combat situation? You will follow my father, portrayed by Lieutenant Pete Mullins, as he confronts these dilemmas.

Most of the incidents in the book actually occurred — we know this from his handwritten accounts in a journal he kept during the war, from photographs he took, and from information provided by some of the men with whom he fought. Korea’s Sleeping Ghosts recounts the experiences of real people who fought in Korea.

But it was important to him not to present overly-dramatized, exaggerated, or glorified accounts of the events that took place; he believed that such characterizations do a disservice to those who fought by distorting the reality of the sacrifices they made. He wrote this book not only to tell of his experiences, but to serve as a tribute to the men and women with whom he served, to those who died or were wounded on the battlefield, and to those who are still missing.