Fighting in the Great Crusade

the long version

"Fighting in the Great Crusade combines the terse clarity of George E. Schwend's World War II combat journals with Gregory Daddis's expert commentary on the greater context of that conflict. The result is the military work that counterpoints historical and strategic analysis against a foxhole-level view of the war in Europe as U.S. soldiers experienced it.". "Schwend's story, which typifies that of young American "citizen soldiers" on whom the Allied cause depended, follows a draftee through the rigors of basic training and Officer Candidate School and into the grim theater of the European campaigns in 1944 and 1945. The young lieutenant's diligent entries initially record quotidian particulars of meals, training, and letters home. The accretion of detail forms a grittily realistic day-to-day account of military life, while Daddis's expansive historical backdrop invests with poignance even such routines as Schwend's faithful attendance at movie screenings as the soldier - and readers - anticipate the fateful Normandy invasion."--BOOK JACKET.