Amazon.com Review
Nearly 50 years in the writing. Acclaimed at its inception in 1948 by Robert Frost, then poet-in-residence at Dartmouth College. Rape, murder, intrigue and deception among the young men on the battlefield. The utter brutality, confusion, madness, and total disorganization of men at war. Young soldiers who grew up during the lean years of the great depression, thrown into battle with pitifully inadequate training and still able to engage in moments of unrestrained hilarity. The pain and horror of liberating the concentration camp at Gunskirchen, described in a way that will send shivers up your spine and literally make you gasp. An astounding book, a book you won't put down--a book you'll never forget.
Review
Sometimes, once is not enough. This is the case with reading Dr. Zebrowsk's account of his World War II service, My Brother, Hail and Farewell! This candid, well-written account of the coming of age of a wartime infantry volunteer leaves the glory out and emphasizes the cold, hard realities of the author's service in some very bloody and unpublicized combat. Fighting in the closing months of the war in a division that had been stripped to provide replacements to units already in battle, rifleman Zebrowski experienced the worst that war has to offer: atrocity, selfishness, cowardice, loneliness, and loss of comrades. At first glance, this seems to be the point of his book. On subsequent reading, however, there is a much more important point to be discerned from My Brother, Hail and Farewell! This mostly-dark reminiscence provides a first-person primer on the disastrous, life-long consequences of impoverished officer and non-commissioned leadership on an intelligent, articulate and impressionable young soldier. The author's attitude toward the War and the U.S. Army in general seems heavily colored by the authoritarian, conceited, and often incompetent brand of leadership to which he was subjected in his unit, from platoon to regimental level. Few accounts of combat service in the U.S. Army in that war, written at any point from V-E Day to the present provide such a grim portrait of impoverished leadership. Here is Zebrowski's most important contribution to the genre of World War II personal combat accounts, and it is a lesson contemporary American military leaders at all levels would do well to remember. Like Dr. Zebrowski, the privates of today sometimes become the doctors, lawyers, and professors of tomorrow. They vote, lecture, and otherwise hold great influence in towns and cities all over America. What they remember will be seen, in their mind's eyes, through a lens colored by the leaders with whom they served. This provocative, stimulating book reminds everybody of the monumental importance of competent, caring, committed leadership. -- Lt. Col. Keith E. Bonn, US Army Training and Doctine Command, Graduate of U.S. MilitaryAcademy, West Point, Ph.D. History, University of Chicago, author of"When The Odds Were Even"
