Customer Reviews

My War

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

As Mr. Rooney states early in the work, writing it is was a cathartic exercise to lay some of his old ghosts to rest. This he certainly does, confessing to past sins, relating old jokes, and paying honor to some of World War II's unknown heroes. Being the grandson of two WWII veterans, I read with awe and began to understand the incredible and heroic actions that were standard behavior for the soldiers of this war. I also understand why they are reluctant to reopen those memories and discuss them. While reading this, I begin to realize the amount of history that is contained in, and dying with, the collective memories of these veterans.

I think the vast majority of the people interested in this book and author are because of his fame from the TV and not as an author. I know this is how I approached this book, I was hopping for the biting humor from his appearances on 60 Minutes but concerned that it would not come through in the written word. What I found when reading the book is that he was representing a different person then the one on TV. He was providing the reader with his experiences during World War 2 in Europe and I found that the writing seemed to come from a much younger and more innocent mind then the current TV personality.

Due to this writing style I found that the book was more enjoyable then I expected. The author gives us some very good stories written in a comfortable way that seems more like holding a conversation with a close friend. This book is not for he person looking for page after page of combat action, just the interesting person story of a war reporter that sees a little bit of everything in the European theater.

Short, punchy style typical of the way Rooney talks on 60 minutes. Very good view back of WWII as he saw it. Very entertaining and informative view of some historical figures-esp. Gen. Patton. Lots of wry humor/sarcastic wit.

"My War"
Andy Rooney
ISBN 1-58648-010-3

As well as being a humorist, Andy Rooney is an iconoclast, and independent thinkers are rarely plentiful. When Tom Brokaw characterized Rooney's WWII age group as "The Greatest Generation", Rooney wrote that it was probably no more special than the current generation, which had not found the occasion for identifying the same qualities in itself. Mr. Brokaw, however, has written the foreword of "My War" and speaks there of Andy Rooney's book as a gift to those who did not come home.

This book is the best work I have read by Andy Rooney. I admire Mr. Rooney's self-effacing approach to writing. For example, he characterizes his assignment as a reporter for the "Stars and Stripes" as a "bungled assignment" by the army that put him in the midst of reporters who had written for papers such as "The New York Times" while his own experience was as sub-editor of "The Thirteenth Field Artillery Brigade Bulletin".

One of the WWII-era personalities Rooney criticizes in this book is General George Patton, whom he views as overrated. Rooney slyly claims people who admire Patton are confusing him with George C. Scott. To Rooney's credit, he quotes a letter received, after unfavorable Patton comments on television, from the general's daughter in which she wrote that the general would not have liked him either. Ernest Hemingway and Charles De Gaulle are also singled out as pompous egomaniacs. General Eisenhower, on the other hand, Rooney praises for allowing "The Stars and Stripes" to have the editorial freedom of regular American newspapers.

Those who know Andy Rooney mainly from his "Sixty Minutes" segments, once caricatured on "Saturday Night Live", may be surprised at the extent to which he saw action as a reporter in WWII. For example, he flew on a B17 raid over enemy territory and won the bronze star for battlefield reporting in Germany. At one point, he even managed to capture a German prisoner.

Much of what Rooney writes in this book is not pretty, such as seeing dead soldiers whose bodies had been crushed by tanks, watching the revenge that some of the citizens of Paris took on the German prisoners when the city was liberated, and coming upon the charred bodies of the Thekla concentration camp inmates that the SS had massacred as the Americans approached.

There are some light touches in this book apropos to human goodness as well. In France, Rooney writes "every wandering dog was adopted and fed by some GI".

Rooney's books always mix humor and candid observation. The same is true here. However, Rooney has a more serious purpose in mind this time. The young men that he knew, killed in the war, he writes, did not give their lives, but rather those lives were taken. It would seem that this book is a way of reconciling the deaths of so many friends and fellow soldiers with Rooney's own relatively long and comfortable life. The book is dedicated to some of those close friends.

As someone who loves to read about history, this book encompassed all that I appreciate so much in an historical account: straight, to the point, no nonsense telling of the facts and emotions rellenvant to a time in history as seen through the eyes of an ordinary person. Rooney does an excellent job showing to the reader that there was nothing special about him or how the events unfolded for him. He was just any young man dragged into war and left to experience the events as they happened. That he was able to begin a long and enjoyable career in journalism thanks to the war is quite typical of how life seems to unfold (how many of us look at where we are in life and realize that just a slight curve in the road got us here?). Beyond that, it was a pleasure to read an account of WWII by a person who's honesty and intelligent wit are so looked foward to on sunday nights.

Didya ever wonder how the US Army -- that bureaucratic bungle of millions that made recruits do things they wouldn't do in peacetime, retained some officers who were jerks, took four days of paperwork to release men from the service at the end of the war and stupidly assigned a private whose only prior journalistic experience was a few weeks work on his high school yearbook to the post of reporter at "Stars and Stripes" -- didyaever wonder how these guys won the war?

They were fighting other country's armies, that's how.

Ok, enough of my attempt to parody Andy Rooney's style above. The guy who lampoons makers of personal care products for a few minutes ever Sunday night does sometimes lend his "what kind of idiot would do this" attitude toward the US Army, WWII version. In those moments, this book sometimes grates -- the same voice that illuminates follies with instant cereal advertising and electric tooth brushes sounds somewhat tinny applied against what was a great undertaking.

Fortunately for this book, those moments are few enough that an interesting picture of the war as seen through Rooney's eyes is not subsumed with his sarcasm and general crankiness. In fact, he keeps those traits generally in check in what reads like an honest look at his service as a front line reporter during the war in Europe.

Rooney's book "My War" is a collection of anecdotes. Fortunately, his travels over German skies in American B-17's, with advancing armor and infantry in France and Germany and to newly (as in a few hours ago) liberated nazi work and concentration camps makes for fascinating anecdotes.

A sergeant in rank, Rooney was afforded the opportunity to meet with personalities and troops of all ranks as he covered the war for what I am sure was the largest circulation American daily newspaper during the early 1940's. His travel made great anecdotes and good stories.

Rooney is poignant in this book. He has a great reverence for lives lost and is very honest about himself and his changing appreciation for war as a sometimes necessary thing (he entered the war with the words "any peace is better than any war" from a college professor ringing in his ears and came to learn after reflecting upon Nazi warfare that "any peace is not better than any war"). This book is somewhat a chronicle of Rooney's maturation as well as his war stories.

The stories are for the most part entertaining and worth reading. His assignment as a reporter gave him a somewhat Zelig-like ability to be near many major events in the war. The reader benefits from these interesting first person accounts.

This is an interesting book to read, for the tangential impressions of life in London, and with the Allied invasion of Europe, and even brief stays in India and China, during World War II by former Stars and Stripes reporter Andy Rooney.
The title, "My War," does not indicate possession as another reviewer thought, but indicates that this is a memoir. The book is full of anecdotal, and broader, observations of the war effort and those involved in it.
However, Rooney's opinion seems a bit too self-important at times, considering his own personal judgment of a situation or person as the final and authoritative word on the subject. He tends to paint those he meets and hears about as totally "good" or "bad."
It could be that, in print, Rooney can't convey the wry "just kidding" tone he verbally communicates in his TV commentaries. Rooney's inability to convey tone leaves the reader puzzled after reading such truly bizarre Rooney statements as "Let me assure you the state of the helicopter art, even the best there is, to this day is primitive. The big Sikorsky, for instance, had that small propeller mounted on the tail.... This small mechanical necessity alone leaves helicopters in the class of Mickey Mouse inventions."
You'll find this an interesting, and somewhat quick, read, but not on your "must read" list.

I am not a fan of 60 minutes but after reading this I will never see Andy Rooney in quite the same way. This is a very honest and humble account of one man's experience in WWII. An ordinary guy placed in extraordinary circumstances with the ability to record what he witnesses in straightfoward and honest language. Rooney's voice and style from his 60 minutes editorials is evident throughout and in this context the result is a combination of respect for the men Rooney encountered in combat situations and an ability to find humor and irony in those situations as well. Overall this is an excellent account of the European war from a journalists perspective. Highly recommended.

Andy Rooney has never been more to me than the nagging, faintly humorous, mildly eccentric curmudgeon that caps each 60 Minutes program. I've seen his newspaper column, but never read it. Indeed, had I not seen this book at a closeout bookseller, I wouldn't own it. But, the bargain price and my interest in WWII convinced me to give it a chance. I'm glad I did.

An enlisted reporter for The Stars and Stripes during the war, Rooney flew missions over Germany, accompanied the allies shortly after D-Day, and continued reporting until victory. In the contemporary catalog of WWII books, his vantage point as a reporter is unique, insightful, and conducive to extended durations of page turning pleasure.

As the title announces, this isn't a book about "the" war. It's about "his" war, his experiences, his opinion. And, in a departure from his 60 Minutes routine, he manages to avoid complaints about matters of trifling importance. Perhaps, this is because there is little of trifling importance associated with WWII. Nevertheless, Rooney faithfully relates the awe of having witnessed, first-hand, an epic period in human history.

In the end, I put down the book and realized, after all these years, that I can enjoy Andy Rooney. I commend this book's honesty and pragmatism, (even though I doubt this is the effect he was aiming for). I am also thankful that, like author's before him, Rooney introduced the general reader to many Americans who didn't come home.

His was a generation of sacrifice unlike anything those who came after are likely to see. Rooney believes them not special people, but people involved in special circumstances. This provides hope that every generation will rise with comparable bravery and commitment whenever liberty is seriously threatened. 4 stars.

Andy's "War" was a new and unique view of a subject we've all heard so much about over the past half century. His tour of duty as a war correspondent for the Stars and Stripes gave him unique first-hand experiences, and his maturity as a commentator gives him a special ability to relate those experiences to us in a way that is both informative and entertaining. I had no prior knowledge of Andy's WWII experience, so this book was quite a surprise. I've enjoyed Andy for many years on the "60 Minutes" show, and now this book gave me a new way to enjoy his astute observations. His ego-deflating stories about General Patton were particularly revealing about a WWII icon. The book was very enjoyable, and a good read for anyone with a historical interest in the way Americans performed during this horrific war. Highly recommended!