My wife was able to receive this book from Netgalley for an honest review. Knowing that my father had served with the 82nd during WWII she knew I would be very interested in this story. Though my father was never captured. This man’s story at the beginning was much like my father’s and so many others. His description of the training and what was expected of each soldier was also what I had heard from my father, as well as the reason they were so successful was one General Gavin was there with the troops in the mud or the river at Market Garden. Also, each officer was expected to do the same.
This author’s story of being a POW and then finally escaping and his ordeal not to be captured added to this story and really made for a different read. He finally making it the American lines to be treated for his wounds and then back to the U.S. was equally powerful. Like some from that generation, the love of two people stayed until they were reunited and finding that his love Arlene was there still wanting for him and the two married just added to this story. I was glad he added the part of what the 82 and other troops did during the Battle of the Bulge, for many think just the 101st and Patton’s tanks were the only ones that fought. I found this to be a wonderful story and truly a lost generation.

Henry, a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne, recounts his war time journey. Among the troops parachuted into France right before the Normandy Invasion, he survived when many others did not. Captured by the Nazi's, he endured hard labor in a coal mine, only to escape and make his way back to allied lines.

This book was well written and engaging. It gave enough details about the war to paint a broad picture, but not too many details to bog or slow the book down. Henry was, and is, a true hero. Anyone who fights for our country, who is willing to sacrifice themselves, is a hero. Overall, well worth reading.

This book was amazing, because it was about an ordinary man who was placed in historic circumstances and did many things of which he is not proud in order to survive, along with a big heaping amount of dumb luck.

This is an honest, up-front book about this man's life, starting with his experiences in the Great Depression, which he contends prepared the country for the worse hardships to come, through his training as a paratrooper and his jumping into D-Day and what followed, including capture, his being taken to a concentration camp and slave labor in the mines and his escape.

He is 100% up-front that his survival wasn't glorious. It was literally him or the enemy, other human beings, at many different times and he chose himself each time, which means the enemy didn't get to survive. He isn't proud of what he did. He realizes that if it wasn't for the war, what he did would have been murder, but because there was the war and it was his life or theirs, he chose his life. But that doesn't make the shame and horror of what he did go away. In order to kill to survive, he had to be angry, he had to be full of hate, full of fear. He's not proud of that. My heart broke for him and what he had to do, what he had to go through, just to get home.

This book isn't graphic, thank goodness, but the violent truth is underlying the whole story. Also weaving throughout the whole book is, could I do what I needed to do to survive? What is the cost of survival? All I have to say is I hope that I and the rest of the world, never have to make that decision, at least, not in the way he had to make it. My heart goes out to him and all the brave and scared men and women who have fought and continue to fight, to keep us free. (This could also be applied to what is happening in the world now. I pray that we are all strong enough to do what we need to survive and to help and not hurt others. We can be afraid, but we can't let it rule us. We are all better than that.)

This book tells is a story that NEEDS to be told. It is so powerful, so impactful, that I would not hesitate to suggest it as high school or college reading. He was 19 when he went to join the war. At the time, he wasn't old enough to vote or to get married, but he was old enough to die for his country and for freedom for the entire world. This might not be a bad book for 18-19 year olds to read. There but for the grace of God...

Stunning, sobering, incredibly important book. 5, I want to meet this man and tell him how thankful I am for his bravery in sharing his story, stars. God bless him, his family and those he fought with. What they did should never be forgotten. We can't let history repeat itself. We just can't.

My thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins Publishers-William Morrow for an eARC copy of this book to read and review.