Here is your war

War is more than just battles, bullets, fighting and killing. It's about soldiers who go for weeks without bathing, nor even taking their socks off. It's about simple delights such as finding a nice foxhole without having to dig it yourself, or a fellow soldier sharing his fresh eggs for breakfast. It's about making friends quickly and deeply, then never seeing them again. At least this is the picture of war painted by correspondent Ernie Pyle in "Here is Your War: The Story of G.I. Joe." This fascinating book is a compilation of Pyle's newspaper dispatches from 1942-43 when he accompanied U.S. soldiers fighting in Algerian and Tunisia, and told their stories to the folks "back home." Pyle is a masterful journalist; any reporter could learn from his careful attention to detail. Every page in "Here is Your War" is filled with stories and anecdotes that are brought alive by his colorful and nuanced observations. He tell us, for example: * Infantry constantly watched the sky; nothing scared them more than strafing planes. * A jeep going fast makes a humming noise that sounds distressingly like an incoming enemy fighter. * The less a soldier washed the less he was bothered by insects. * Repair crews improvised methods to keep planes flying that would have frightened the plane's makers * A tired soldier -- sometimes they would go for two or three days without a break -- could sleep right through an artillery shelling. * In war, "camouflage became second nature. Near the front no one ever parked a jeep without putting it under a tree. If there were no trees, we left it on the shady side of a building or wall. As we neared the front we folded our windshield down over the hood and slipped a canvas cover over it so it wouldn't glint and attract a pilot's eye." Along with such details, Pyle introduces us to many dozens of the soldiers. Most of these are ordinary men who were living ordinary lives as doctors, carpenters, furniture movers, or some such occupation before the war. Now suddenly they're off on the biggest adventures of their lives. For each man, Pyle find a story or detail that makes him unique, then quickly moves on. There are no continuing characters in the book, other than the author himself, but that's the nature of war, Pyle explains: "In wartime people leave without saying good-bye -- a fellow would be gone for three or four days before we realized his absence. It was no use to inquire. We just accepted it, and months later we were likely to be pumping his hand in some other foreign country. Or maybe we would never see him again. There was no telling." A big strength of this book is that Pyle is just plain likeable. He's down-to-earth, self-deprecating and admittedly human. I especially liked when he confessed that he was too scared to go along with a bomber crew on a dangerous mission. The book is filled with funny and offbeat anecdotes, and you'll no doubt gets some laughs from the book. But this is still war, and Pyle acknow

Ernie Pyle was one of the finest war reporters of his generation and this book shows us why. Pyle writes simply and describes what he saw, day in, day out, never exaggerating, never descending into hyperbole. A tank drives up, the commander laughing about something, and then heads into combat. In the next line Pyle tells us the crew died half an hour later, using curiously dispassionate yet effective language to do so. This is an account of the U.S. combat campaign in North Africa, the first major European theatre conflict that American troops took part in. Pyle pulls no punches and describes the endless problems the troops came up against thanks to what he saw as excessive bureaucracy. Nor does he hide unpleasant facts -- he correctly describes the Battle of Kasserine Pass as a major defeat for the fledgling troops but goes on to say they'll do better the next time. This is a wonderful book and I cannot recommend it too highly.

As a combat veteran, I have always admired Ernie Pyle. He stood head and shoulders above other reporters in World War Two. He was in the thick of battles, shoulder to shoulder with the troops. More than that, he saw war through the eyes of individual soldiers. He shows us their human side while they do a dirty job, and he gives them dignity that they richly deserve. If you haven't been in combat, you haven't a clue as to what it is like, but Ernie Pyle's words come closer to a realistic picture of the many facets of war than anything else I have read. Here Is Your War begins on a ship carrying inexperienced, American troops to the invasion of North Africa in November, 1942. Through Pyle's eyes, we follow their landing at Oran, their pounding and defeats by the Germans as they struggle eastward, the bitter battles in Tunisia, and final victory in the Spring of 1943. If you are in combat long enough, you will die, and it happened to Ernie Pyle on Okinawa in the Spring of 1945. But he left us memorable words about war, such as those in this book. It is well worth reading.

Ernie Pyle, probably the greatest journalist who ever lived, presents his best work from the American campaign in North Africa. Through Ernie's words, we see how life was like in WWII for the average soldier. Ernie never cared for raving on about generals and admirals -- just the average "Joe." His books read like the greatest screenplays. And yet they are not fiction. They are real stories, memoirs, recollections, biographies of hundreds of soldiers. His book is a living, breathing echoe of America's blood and tears in World war II. A must for any journalist, journalism student or anyone interested in World War II and military history