Brave Men

While back in the states a few weeks ago, I picked up a used book for 25 cents. A third of its' 1964 selling price when printed. Its' first printing was at the end of 1944.

The stories in the book are worth a thousand times that 25 cents.

In his book "Brave Men", the famous syndicated war correspondent of the day--Ernie Pyle--has numerous stories of the WWII campaigns in Italy and France.

His heart is mostly with the infantry of which he spent a lot of dangerous time on the ground right with them. The book also has great stories of other branches of the Army and Navy.

He mentions people directly by name, home town, what they did before the war and what they were doing at the time he met them under fire, in the mud or less dangerous areas. The book's index only contains the names of those people and their home town.

The book also offers some good perspective over the variety of operations.

And, the writing is superb.

With more of the war to go, one of the last paragraphs in the book thought of in a field in France is this:

"Thousands of our men will soon be returning to you. They have been gone a long time and they have seen and done and felt things you cannot know. They will be changed. They will have to learn how to adjust themselves to peace. Last night we had a violent electrical storm around our countryside. The storm was half over before we realized that the flashes and the crashings around us were not artillery but plain old-fashioned thunder and lighting. It will be odd to hear only thunder again. You must remember that such little things as that are in our souls, and will take time."

Ernie Pyle was killed by an sniper, April 18th, 1945 on the island of Iejima Island near Okinawa.