Selected Chaff: The Wartime Columns of Al McIntosh, 1941-1945

The citizens of Rock County, Minnesota, experienced at least their fair share of suffering and tragedy during World War II. At times, the Rock County Star-Heralds front page brimmed with headlines and stories of area boys missing or killed overseas, their smiling photos providing evidence of better times before their lives were cut short by war.

Al McIntosh shines during these moments of deepest despair, when it seemed there would be no end to the sacrifice of young lives. You can sense it in his voice, stubbornly determined and unabashedly patriotic; that of a man possessed. A gadfly in the best sense of the term, he challenged, cajoled, and spurred the locals to do their part, to buy war bonds, to salvage, save, and ration, to give voluntarily, and to stay personally engaged in the war effort. Like any great community leader, he raised their spirit by his own tireless example. Al McIntosh was an eyewitness to the ebbs and flows of one county during the most terrible yet necessary war our world has yet seen.
The process of selecting the best of these columns came with a heavy burden of honoring the memory of both a man and a community that sacrificed so much during the war. A conscientious effort was made to include both the best and the most representative columns, compiled chronologically to show the growth of Al McIntosh as a writer and as a journalist. Selected Chaff recalls a nation and a community that, when called upon to do so, joined together at home and abroad to fight the necessary war. Selected Chaff is a rich collection of McIntosh's columns from the war period, including all of those read by actor Tom Hanks in the Burns documentary.