The support of the American Council of Learned Societies and the Austrian Fulbright Commission helped me and my family to spend the academic year 1981–82 pursuing research at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace for at Stanford University. The Stanford English Department kindly provided me with an office and included me and my family in all departmental and faculty events.

The research eventually resulted in a book-length study of U.S. war fiction that was an important stepping stone for my academic career in American studies. Altogether, the whole family profited enormously from our year abroad, and we returned home with wonderful memories - in short, a highly educational experience in a very comprehensive sense.

Walter Hoelbling is a retired Professor of English and American studies at Karl-Franzens University. He was at the University of Michigan as an Austrian Fulbright Scholar in 1977–78 and at the University of Albany in 1999–2000.