Unsung Valor: A GI's Story of World War II [Hardcover]

A. Cleveland Harrison (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2000

This is the memoir of thirty riveting months in the life of a common infantryman, one among the "citizen soldiers" who took the Allies to victory.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Half a century ago, Harrison, now emeritus professor of theater at Auburn University, experienced just a single day of combat in his two years of military service. Still, he, no less than other more experienced soldiers, was shaped by WW II. A relatively privileged middle-class boy from Little Rock, Ark., Harrison was not an enthusiastic draftee--so he was pleased to be assigned initially to an Army Specialized Training Program, which selected the best and brightest draftees for technical and professional education in civilian colleges. (Relatively little is known about that program, and Harrison's description of his days as a uniformed student at the University of Mississippi make a contribution to the war's social history.) But in 1944, when the program was cut back and men were needed as infantry replacements on the front, Harrison was reassigned to the 94th Infantry Division; shipped to Europe in July, he was badly wounded in his first action. Combining a novelist's sense of people and events with the story of his development into an infantryman--not an eager soldier but a good one--Harrison describes his hospitalization, convalescence in England and subsequent assignment to a branch of the military government of occupied Germany--the kind of assignment ASTP graduates were supposed to receive in the first place. The result is a celebration of every draftee who came when he was called, did his duty where he was assigned and came back to shape America's century, and a reminder that every soldier's experience was, in the end, distinct. (Mar.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Drafted in 1942 and sent to the Army Special Training Program, Harrison received engineering training. When the desperate need for replacements forced the ASTP's termination, he was sent to the Ninety-fourth Infantry Division. With it, he was in the siege of the French port Lorient, and the Battle of the Bulge, in which a land mine seriously wounded him. Assigned to military government after hospitalization, he served in occupation forces in Germany until well after V-E Day. His memoir adds to our knowledge about many aspects of the American war experience--about GI relations with the English, Germans, and French; about the goof-offs and the genuine heroes among the GIs; about the nightmare of military hospitals; and much else--from the perspective of an educated southerner tossed in among nonsoutherners. Besides its sociohistorical value, Harrison's memoir tells a thoroughly engrossing story, relaying an unusual and articulate private's view that makes a fitting companion to such broad overviews as Tom Brokaw's best-seller The Greatest Generation (1999). Roland Green

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 365 pages
• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi (March 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1578062144
• ISBN-13: 978-1578062140
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (54 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,554,066 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

A. Cleveland Harrison, Professor Emeritus of Theatre at Auburn University, established in 1951 a theater program on the campus of Little Rock Junior College, which became the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Then he taught for thirteen years at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville in the undergraduate and graduate programs, supervising basic speech and the basic fine arts programs, before chairing the Department of Speech and Dramatic Art. In 1970, he joined the School of Architecture and Fine Arts at Auburn as head professor of the Department of Theatre and guided the curriculum revision and the design and building of the Telfair Peet Theatre. Under Dr. Harrison's direction, the department produced nine full-length plays annually, of which he directed at least two each year. He also acted the roles of Sir Thomas More in A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS, Clarence Day in LIFE WITH FATHER, Captain Hook in PETER PAN, and Lazar Wolfe in FIDDLER ON THE ROOF.

Dr. Harrison holds the Ph.D.(with Distinction) in Drama and Theatre from the University of Kansas, an MA in Speech and Dramatic Art from the University of Arkansas, and MA and BS (cum laude) in English, Speech, and Theater from The Ohio State University. The Alabama Conference of Theater and Speech elected him to the Alabama Theater Hall of Fame in 1996, "for distinguished contributions and enduring dedication as a past pioneer in Alabama Theater." Since his retirement, Dr. Harrison has written two memoirs: UNSUNG VALOR: A GI's STORY OF WORLD WAR II (University Press of Mississippi, 2000) which received the Forrest C. Pogue Prize from The Eisenhower Center for American Studies in 2001;
and A LITTLE ROCK BOYHOOD: GROWING UP IN THE GREAT DEPRESSION (Butler Center Books, 2010)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unsung Valor, August 28, 2000

By 

Paul C. Dalrymple (Port Clyde, Maine) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Unsung Valor: A GI's Story of World War II (Hardcover)

Review of UNSUNG VALOR by Cleveland Harrison by Dr. Paul C. Dalrymple, editor, Antarctican Society Newsletter, BUT formerly PFC, rifleman, 2nd Platoon, B Company, 301st Infantry Regiment, 94th Division (Cleveland's own!) Reading this book, especially the first part, through the fiasco at Orscholz, was like looking into an ancient history mirror of my own military life, reflections of which I had successfully tried to lose in my memory bank. But reading this book turned out not to be a tragedy of very bad memories, but more of "Wow, this is the way it really was!" How great to see and read a book about the war from its lowest level, that of a private carrying a rifle in the infantry, the story of an ill-fated battle where seventeen hundred were killed outright, 300 were captured - Patton's biggest single loss in World War II. More war books are written by decision makers; this one was by a war executioner. A young kid, still wet behind his ears, who had heard the singing noise of bullets flying by, the exploding burst of shells from the German 88--turned into an anti-personnel mode--crashing in trees overhead, who had felt the hot sting of shrapnel tearing into his own flesh. This was war at its ugliest. How an outfit was put together by the infiltration of young teenage college students mingling with soft and hard coal miners, some of who could not even write their own names. It seems so highly unlikely today, but that was the way it truly was in the 94th Division in World War II. Some names had to be changed, not only to protect the innocent, but also the writer! This book is written so lucidly and with so much passion for the human being that anyone interested in life is going to enjoy it.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars IN A SOLDIER'S FOOTSTEPS, October 9, 2002

By 

Rudy Goldschmidt (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Unsung Valor: A GI's Story of World War II (Hardcover)

In reading Unsung Valor, I was constantly amazed at the author's ability to portray the specifics of day to day life as a G.I. in W.W. 2. Many novels go for the bullets, the blood and guts, of warfare - sometimes to its glory - but A.C. Harrison takes the reader on the long hard run of what it took to become a soldier, to be transformed from boy to man, from innocence to awareness.

The author has the ability to take relatively quotidian events and make them specific, interesting and emotional.  I found his style fluid and easy to read, and his imagery compelling. He conveys seemlessly a very personal pov of how it felt to grow into manhood baptized by fire. 

What I found most refreshing was the theatrical experiences he had along the way.  I'd never thought that in the middle of a world war that the most basic form of entertainment; skits, singing, impersonations could have such a large impact on the fighting men. Indeed there's something very poignant
about that - the tough GI who can't help but smile because one of his theatrical brothers in arms is so funny, the songs sung that made soldiers so dearly miss home which some would never see again. Read this book!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Strong writing ability and talent for telling story, May 3, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Unsung Valor: A GI's Story of World War II (Hardcover)

This is great personal account of the war experiences of A. Cleveland Harrison. What makes Harrison's Unsung Valor different is that it is a memoir by a soldier who was not in a lot of battles but rather spent his war years as a cog in the military bureaucracy. But if you think this sounds like a boring book, think again.

It is a credit to Harrison's writing ability and his talent for telling a story that his book never flags in holding the reader's interest. When the last page is turned, most readers will share my thought that this was a really interesting book and that it provided a view of war seldom reported.