The author was an inexperienced 2nd Lieutenant replacement platoon leader who joined his armored division at the onset of the Battle of the Bulge, and then led his platoon, and eventually his company through three campaigns until the end of the war when his division reached the Elbe River in Germany.
Remarkably, this story includes a variety of fascinating information concerning the history of tank warfare and the origin of armored divisions in the U.S. Army. At the beginning of each of the chapters are contemporary newspaper headlines that keep the story related to the times, followed by letters to and from the soldiers and their parents, their siblings, their girlfriends and their wives, with all the false bravado, humor, sadness, hopes, and poignancy that many of those letters contained.
Most riveting, however, are the accounts of the emotions, the psychological relationships of men engaged in war, and the revelations of cowardice and heroism of young men in the face of the enemy.
Although a micro-historical memoir, the book is fictionalized to conceal the identity of the various characters, but all of the events and actions described actually occurred.
The author has endeavored - and succeeded - in authentically capturing the ethnic attitudes as well as the profane and earthy language of these young men enmeshed in a war they hated. He also gives details of young soldiers' encounters with women who were only too willing to relieve them of the stress of their sexual deprivation, and of the sometimes unanticipated consequences of these fleeting relationships.
The book is dedicated to those eleven of the author's 1944 Class at Norwich University who died while serving their country in World War II. Running through the book is the thread showing the development of courage and confidence in one of the main characters contrasted with the disintegration of a former gung-ho hero into cowardice and shameful behavior.
A glossary at the end of the book helps those without military experience to understand the technicalities and the vulgarities found throughout the text. Also included are maps, photographs, newspaper clippings, as well as silhouettes of the tanks encountered in the story.
