Not in Vain: A Rifleman Remembers World War II

Standifer was drafted, selected for the ATSP and then assigned to K Co, 301st Infantry Regt of the 94th Division. He received proper training and when he went to France it was with a platoon and company that he had a great deal of pride in. He served for several months outside Lorient, keeping tabs on the garrison there and later briefly at Nennig before doing some occupation duty. His is a very interesting story as it covers things that many other memoirs do not. Standifer's background is intriguing. He grew up a devout Baptist in the small Southern town of Clinton, a place where academics was favoured over sport. I really enjoyed his stories of his youth, where almost all activities revolved around his church. His confusion about some of the more perplexing and contradictory passages of the Bible struck home. It left him a slightly shy and naive fellow, a fact rammed home when he was drafted. He finds himself with a very disparate group and some of his recollections are wonderful. His story of the farm boy who boasted "I used to be scared of town but now I can turn on a light as well as anyone" was priceless. Later in the ASTP he finds himself being challenged by educated Northerners about the segregation of Negroes. It is quite a steep learning curve for a teenager. He is adept at spotting the general ironies of army life. He essentially enjoyed training; it was a lot like camp. Later as things got more serious, he learned, noting in one passage that his childhood hero Tom Mix - would've been hopeless at real street fighting. He recalls a lot that was covered in lectures and the attitudes of others. There was a lot that was new in this. About pg 110 his unit ships to France. Standifer is actually quite a keen soldier. He is confident in himself and in his unit. He is the platoon scout and there is a lot on his thoughts on this role and considerable detail on patrols he undertook. One of his key concerns though, due to his religious upbringing, is whether he'll be able to kill. It is an issue that worries him acutely and when he is forced to do so it is in an utterly astonishing manner! His reflections on the event (including denial) and the circumstances are sobering. It is no surprise that he had vivid nightmares - including waking with the smell of bodies in his nostrils. Overall though, he is in less combat than most of the others on my list. What he writes is still pretty interesting. He has good luck and bad and is hospitalized twice. Standifer worked as a University lecturer after the war and he is very literate. It is fascinating to watch him grow from a boy who was shy of girls and felt guilt at drinking beer to a veteran who even though unwell, returned to his platoon because it needed him. Standifer makes very clear how important his friends were and writes in detail of them (including summaries of their post war lives). So while this is not in the top shelf of combat memoirs, it is in a special place in terms of how it wonderf

"Not In Vain" by Leon Standifer. Subtitled, "A Rifleman Remembers World War II. Louisiana State University Press, 1992. When Leon Standifer volunteered, he was a tall, lanky Southern boy who had not traveled far his home town of Clinton, Mississippi. The book begins with a letter dated "Sept. Beats me, 15? 1944, Somewhere in France". Professor Standifer had signed up for the Army Specialist Training Program (ASTP), where deserving individuals (read "smart guys"), would be sent through college by the U. S. Army and then be expected to later serve in positions that were technically demanding. The war, however, changed all that and Leon Standifer and all the other ASTP soldiers, were given some basic infantry training and were shipped to France. Standifer, assigned to the 94th Infantry Division, landed in Normandy in August 1944, and then went to Lorient, France to contain German troops in a pocket. Combat was not heavy there, but he saw Americans getting killed. Standifer's training made him into the "point man", the soldier who would lead the advance towards an enemy's position. Standifer's book presents a complete account of combat, from the of the fear in leading patrols to the abrasive routine life of a soldier waiting for something to happen. He was wounded (perhaps by friendly fire) and came back to his company near in January 1945. In that bitter Winter, Leon developed pneumonia and frozen feet; he was rotated out to England and did not return to Europe until the War was almost over. Thus, he experienced much of the European Theater of Operations: landing in Normandy a few months after D-Day, the drudgery of siege-like waiting, being wounded, returning to his unit, and then finding some of his old friends missing, not being accepted the "new" old-hands in the unit and the joy of seeing hostilities ending. This book documents many of the experiences of many of the soldiers in ETO.

Leon Standifer initially volunteered for the Army Specialist Training Program (ASTP), believing he would be sent through college on the army's dime and assigned a non-combat role afterward. In early 1944, when it became apparent that what was needed to see the conflict through was foot soldiers and not specialists, Standifer and thousands of other ASTPers became infantrymen, and shipped out for Europe. Standifer, as part of the 94th Infantry Division, landed in Normandy in August 1944, and moved to Lorient, France to help contain German troops holding the submarine base there. Though he experienced little combat during his time near Lorient, Standifer's account paints an insightful picture of the everyday life of WWII rifleman, from the terror of leading scouting patrols to the more mundane routine of life in a combat zone. This is a "warts and all" memoir (the best kind) which seeks neither to glorify his own experiences or varnish over the shortcomings of his fellow soldiers and commanding officers. During an assault on German positions near Etel in early December, Standifer was wounded by friendly fire and spent a month recuperating. Rejoining his company near Nenning, Germany in January (two days after it had suffered 70% casualties in an assault), he was sent on patrol behind German lines, but soon developed pneumonia and frozen feet, and was sent to England to fully recover. Shipped back to Europe 8 weeks later, he reached Belgium just as the war in Europe ended. This is a thougtful book; not your typical war-time memoir, through which Standifer explores and tries to explain what motivated he and hundreds of thousands like him to fight.