The difficulties military families face on the home front during wartime, the struggles of veterans to reintegrate into society after war, the fate of military widows and orphans, and the emergence of family traditions of military service were as vitally important issues in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Europe as they continue to be in twenty-first-century America. My first book project, Left Behind: Veterans, Widows, and Orphans in the Era of the Crusades, engages larger debates about the impact of religious violence and persecution within societies, their influence on social values and family practices, and the development of the mentalités and institutions which sustain them, but more importantly, it recovers the true costs of crusading and holy war in the Middle Ages: the neglected experiences of the veterans and casualties of the crusading movement, their personal struggles and triumphs, and the lives of those they left behind: their wives and children, widows and orphans.

The photograph of Randall Todd Pippenger was taken by Monika Reimitz.