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50 of 52 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Memories of the War, July 30, 2005
This review is from: Taught to Kill: An American Boy's War from the Ardennes to Berlin (Hardcover)
Reading "Taught to Kill" brings back vivid and chilling memories of those days with you in L company, 310th Regiment, 78th Division,in the cold winter of 1944-45. I was 18 going on 19 and at that point would have been pathetically grateful to see twenty. My memory of those days and nights is of bitter cold, empty villages, echoing streets and a sense of deadly imminence. In fact, I think the enemy had pretty well evacuated ahead of us except for some isolated snipers who shot at us as they were retreating. As we moved toward the front we would sometimes walk past frozen corpses. I still remember a day when a medic with his Red Cross insignia clearly visible was dropped by a single shot from a sniper on the far side.
I think you have done a great job of capturing the feeling of those days, which you might call the reality of the unreality of it all. That whole transition of innocent country boys into at least semi-professional killers is a real phenomenon of our time, and I think we should all be grateful that those days did not mark us worse than they did. You have done a terrific job of understanding and recreating the past without glorifying it beyond reason or common sense. Congratulations!
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24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Superb Writing; Superb Story., April 8, 2007
This review is from: Taught to Kill: An American Boy's War from the Ardennes to Berlin (Hardcover)
"Taught To Kill" by John B. Babcock. Subtitled: "An American Boy's War From The Ardennes To Berlin". Potomac Books, Inc. Dulles, Virginia, 2005.
The writing in this book is excellent. Throughout the book, the author, John Babcock, WWII Veteran, uses alliteration, the rhyming of the first syllables of words, as little jewels which makes his writing sparkle. Despite the serious subject of the book, the author has made it easy and pleasing to read. And, the subject of the book is serious.
Using a fifty-year old manuscript, which he had typed at the end of hostilities in Europe, he put together a genuine accounting of a "...small-town American college kid, transformed ... by government edict, into a foreign-soil combat soldier". Unlike so many other personal memoir books, Babcock has expended a great deal of energy on introspection, where his recorded observations are combined with an examination of exactly what his pains and his unit's hard work did for the war effort, in particular, and for mankind, in general.
His description of the death of his "...first KIA (killed in action): Sergeant Coleman..." was particularly poignant. Sergeant Coleman's professionalism had convinced Babcock that Coleman was possibly the most invulnerable soldier in the company, and there was the sergeant with a "...chunk of his forehead ...shot away". On the other hand, the author's description of the collapse of Technical Sergeant Oaks during an artillery barrage was particularly chilling. Sergeant Oaks had been bold, brash and brave in basic training, but, after the first miss by an 88mm round, there was the sergeant "... huddled under his wet overcoat by the shelter entrance." The sergeant's improper behavior had all "... but disabled me." On the same page, Babcock includes an interesting fact: most German Artillery fire during World War II was, in fact, 105mm, not the famous (infamous) 88mm. (Page 31). And, for those who served in the Army specialized Training Program (ASTP), page 154 presents the reason that the ASTP program was reduced dramatically: "... (t)hat almost all (replacements) went into the infantry was a given. Forty thousand replacements coming into our ranks translated to ten thousand men per week leaving the front lines for hospitals or for Dutch or Belgian cemeteries". I have never read such a succinct summary of the horrendous ETO casualty rate that caused General George Marshall to downsize ASTP and to move so many Air Corps candidates into the infantry. Excellent writing; excellent story telling.
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28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
It has the ring of deep understanding, June 6, 2005
This review is from: Taught to Kill: An American Boy's War from the Ardennes to Berlin (Hardcover)
I honestly believe that this is the best narrative of combat that I've ever read. John Babcock was a college student before the war. In the Army he was put into the Army Specialized Training Program. This program took smart guys and trained them for various professional jobs, usually giving them officer rank as well.
Then after D-Day when combat really got started the Army began to realize that their carefully planned formations of men had everything in it from truck drivers, to supply clerks, to artillerymen (canon cockers), to everything else. But at the pointy end of the stick was the front line rifleman. And guess where the majority of the casualties were occurring.
The author was pulled out of training one day, along with many thousand other young men, and all of a sudden was a rifleman. He got to Europe just in time for the Battle of the Bulge. Freezing in the European winter (In the infantry it is always too cold, or too hot, or too wet, or too dusty.) he learned the hard way what combat was like. His story, first written just after the war but bundled up for a half century has the ring of truth, and better yet, the ring of understanding.
I particularily liked his story of getting promoted to Private First Class (PFC) after being in the Army for about a year and a half. I was finally promoted to PFC thirteen days before they would have had to write a letter explaining why not.
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