a rare and unusual history, which captures some of the variability of this large war.The book reads well. Most chapters can be read as stand alone essays, but read as a whole the book builds a layered depiction of the back lines, the home front, and the fighting man.The last chapter horrifies and moves the reader. Fussell has a goal of helping to bring Americans to a greater maturity about behavior during war, and the costs of battle. It is clear that America is immature about battle and death -- witness the end of the Gulf War -- and that this has a cost in how we pursue foreign policy.Great book, great read, excellent corrective to the outsized heroic histories of the war.

Contrary to some of the recentreviews, I consider Fussell's work the best I have read on WWII. I've read some of Stephen Amborse's works and enjoyed them as well, but Fussell provides a much needed critical, even cynical, antidote to Ambrose's telling of the story. Fussell definitely departs from the mainstream representation the war and that is immensely refreshing.Fussell provides detailed insight into the daily lives of the average soldier, the mundane and the horrific. He tells of many errors (in fact in his view the whole war should be viewed as a series of errors) such as shooting down friendly planes and bombimg of friendly troops. Fussell discloses the tremendous amount of drinking that went on, the physical deprivations, and the cruelty of inept martinets that were officers. To me, the war