Military history is of value to more than the military. It teaches life principles, too, and guides us all in existential decisions of all kinds.
I recently read “The Last Hill: the Epic Story of a Ranger Battalion and the Battle that Defined WWII” by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin, St. Martin’s Press, NYC, 2022. Often in the words of the men who participated in the invasion of Nazi-held Europe, it follows the troops through the inception of the Rangers to the training and the campaign from D-Day to VE Day.
Some take-away quotes:
“There is an old soldier’s adage that when the army spends time and money on you it isn’t trying to save your life, but rather attempting to find a more efficient way for you to lose it.”
“Nearly half of all A&M graduates had volunteered for military service at the height of the fighting – the highest percentage of any institute of higher learning in the United States – and in 1918 the university’s entire senior graduating class had enlisted en masse.”
The Nazis put a price on their enemies’ lives: “…each German marksman had been promised a reward of one hundred cigarettes for every ten Allied bodies he felled in the Norman hedgerows, twenty days’ leave for twenty corpses, and the Iron Cross,1st Class and a wristwatch from Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler for fifty verified kills.”
Drury and Clavin are among my favorite historians. Here they have captured the essence of the American spirit, and a timeless lesson in righteous determination.
Appears to be another outstanding book selection. Mas, how about listing the last 10 books you read and thought good?
It is interesting to read that many alumni of A & M served in the Philippines and in particular on Corregidor and on Bataan.