Some things are worth dying for. In the summer of 1943, Lieutenant Bill Hendrix - former history teacher, reluctant soldier - climbs into a fifteen ton M5 Stuart light tank with three men he barely knows and begins the longest journey of his life. From the beaches of Sicily to the mud of Volturno, from the frozen foxholes of Anzio to the rubble of Bologna, Bill and his crew - Sal the Brooklyn mechanic, Tex the Texas gunner, and Gene the quiet kid from Ohio - fight their way up the spine of Italy in a war the world is already forgetting. The tank is named Jackies Back, after the woman Bill is fighting to return to. She is fifteen tons of thin steel, twin Cadillac engines, and borrowed time. So are the men inside her. Jackies Back is a novel about what it costs to keep moving forward - through fire, through mud, through the slow erosion of everything a man thought he knew about himself - and what waits for him if he makes it home.