A just and lively account of the Second World War as it was experienced by someone who enlisted in the Missouri State Guard at the age of sixteen and entered the Army of the United States before he graduated from high school. He did basic training in Texas, was briefly an engineering student in Philadelphia, and an air cadet in Miami Beach. Transferred to North Carolina, he learned to be a mortar gunner. He was sent overseas to France, campaigned in the Vosges Mountains, where he was wounded. He recovered from his wound in the army hospitals of France and England, returned to his unit, joined...