Customer Reviews

The Making of a Paratrooper: Airborne Training and Combat in World War II (Modern War Studies)

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It's really a shame this book is out of print, as it is just as good as the more famous Ambrose books. The reason "The Making of a Paratrooper" reads so well is that Kurt Gabel was a paratrooper and participant in everything he describes...something Ambrose can't claim. His is a light, easy style of prose that reads easily, yet conveys the emotions, both high and low, of war. Friends blown to pieces or shot in the head right next to you. Moments of hilarity and joy...or the abject misery of fighting in hellish conditions. It's all here, from the beginnings in the tough jump school--it's amazing how hard these men trained--to the bloody European battlefields. All I can say is, this book pulls you in and keeps you there in a way that few tomes do. It is well worth the purchase. I might also add that Dr. William Mitchell, a paratrooper in the same Airborne outfit as Kurt Gabel and who wrote the final chapter of "The Making of a Paratrooper," was my political science professor at the University of Oregon in Eugene. He still proudly wears his paratrooper beret.