“This is a story of America,” Martha MacCallum writes in the author’s note to The Book of Valor: America’s Story of Survival, Gallantry & Grace. “It is one thread woven from our Pilgrim heritage in Plymouth to a World War II triple ace in the skies over Berlin; to a rescue hero in Vietnam to the burning World Trade Center towers to the treacherous battle of Afghanistan.”

One thread. It’s a storyteller’s phrase, and she chose it with care. The book, out from HarperCollins on Nov. 10, doesn’t line its heroes up like stone sentinels in a park. It tells one American story that passes from one generation to the next, and she lets the people who were there tell it.