War, Loss, and Love Drive a Reporter's Quest to Understand His Father, and Himself
Carrying a Father's Words Across a Lifetime
In Tell the Kids I Love Them, journalist Jeremy Redmon embarks on a sweeping odyssey to uncover the mysteries of his father's life and death. His father, a decorated Vietnam veteran, took his own life when Redmon was a teenager—an act that propelled him into a lifelong quest to understand war, loss, and fatherhood.From the blast-scorched tents of Mosul to the ancient ruins of Babylon, Redmon chronicles his years as a war correspondent embedded with US troops in Iraq, surviving close calls while witnessing both devastation and humanity. His reporting takes him beyond the battlefield: to Jordan, where a therapist helps him confront trauma, and to Vietnam, where he walks the ground of a historic battle his father fought decades earlier.Threaded with dark humor, cinematic detail, and raw honesty, this memoir is as much about resilience as it is about tragedy. Redmon confronts family trauma, mental illness, and addiction while illuminating how love can endure across generations. In becoming a father himself, he finally learns to carry both his father's complicated legacy and the final message he left behind: "Tell the kids I love them."
Jeremy Redmon is senior reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and an adjunct instructor at the University of Missouri's School of Journalism. He is the author of "The Inside Story of the deadliest Attack During the Iraq War" (Task and Purpose, 2020), "The Empathy That Brought the Irish and Iroquois Together as One" (USA Lacrosse Magazine, 2020), and "Tell the Kids I Love Them" (Oxford Magazine, 2022).
