An autobiography of Charles P. Roland as he chronicles his life from boyhood in 1920s rural Tennessee to retirement after a distinguished 50-year academic career. The author served as a captain in a front-line infantry battalion in Europe, fought in the most crucial sector in the Battle of the Bulge, and earned a Purple Heart fighting at the Remagan bridgehead. The author describes his many close brushes with death, the loss in battle of numerous cherished friends, the massive destruction of major German cities, and his postwar depression. Blending his own observations with current scholarship, he draws a striking comparison between World War II and the American Civil War.

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