William Mandella

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William Mandella is the main character in Joe Haldeman's Forever War series, the protagonist of The Forever War and Forever Free.

He was born on Earth in 1975, and majored in physics during college. Following the start of the war with the Taurans, in 1996, he was conscripted to join the newly created United Nations task force (as the team's physics specialist). In this storyline, only the intellectual and physical elite are recruited to fight in the space forces, under the Elite Conscription Act.

It is through his eyes that the reader experiences both the war against the alien Taurans and the changes in society and technology on Earth during the thousand-year conflict (made possible by time dilation, a relativistic consequence of traveling close to the speed of light, between battles).

During the war, he falls in love with Marygay Potter. Upon the conclusion of the war, he marries her and then moves to the distant planet "Middle Finger" to raise their two children. The novel Forever Free begins after Mandella has lived on "Middle Finger" for a couple of decades.