The 2015 Richard Boes Memorial Award goes to Karen Evancic for her book A When A Red Bird Flies (ISBN 978-0-98559699-6). The award is a $100 cash prize for best debut book by a veteran (fiction or memoir) and is sponsored by Modern History Press. The contest is administered by Reader Views Inc., which includes a general book award contest as well.
Sheri Hoyte’s review at Reader Views noted: “Readers will definitely walk away from the experience in awe of the inner strength and character of these two beautiful women..”
Richard Boes enlisted into the US Army and served in Vietnam in 1969 – 1970 with the First Air Cav. He is the author of two books, The Last Dead Soldier Left Alive (2007) a firsthand inquiry into why thousands of Vietnam veterans have committed suicide and Last Train Out (2008). Right up to his death Richard was writing a third, In the Valley of Dry Bones. He passed away on Feb 21st, 2009 at the VA Hospital in Albany, NY.
Past winners of the Richard Boes Memorial Award
- 2009 My Last War: A Vietnam Veteran’s Tour in Iraq by Charles M. Grist (ISBN 9781440152689)
- 2010 Sworn to Secrecy for Life: A Young American Spy’s Odyssey through War-torn Germany and Russia by Charles Joseph Fickey (ISBN 9781432761189)
- 2011 A Haunting Beauty: Vietnam Through the Eyes of an Artist by James John Magner (ISBN 978-1461057543).
- 2012 Deadly Lode by Randall Reneau (ISBN 978-1-47913179-2).
- 2014 A Country Doctor Goes To War (ISBN 978-0-985093761).