Rating: 
Summary: A great book which depicts the GI as his best and worst.
Review: COMMENTS: An excellent book especially for anyone who had "been there-done that" in todays jargon, especially from the viewpoint of the Enlisted Man or Company-Grade Officer. It is a book which can be used by those of us who lived through it to give an answer to our children and grandchildren when the question of "What did you do in the war Daddy (Granddad)" arises. It causes one to recall similar situations which took place elsewhere (103rd Inf Div-Cactus)in France and Germany. Understandably there are limits as to just how much research and narratives can be included in one book of this type. However I feel that the actions and deeds of units and individuals of the 7th Army took a back seat to others mentioned in the book. There is little if any reference to the Voges Mountain Campaign, or the heroics of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team which rescued a lost battalion of the 36th Inf Division because of blunders on the part of higher command and took a heavy casualty toll. These items deserved to have been given their place in this otherwise fine book. Since it was not to be, recommended reading in conjunction with this book would be: "When The Odds Were Even" by Keith Bonn, and "The Other Battle of the Bulge-Operation Northwind" by Charles Whiting.
Rating: 
Summary: Picks up where The Men From Company K left off
Review: After having read "The Men of Company K" for the third time, I was in a book store and noticed this title. To Ambrose's credit, he references "...Company K" as perhaps the best book of its type, reviewing the ETO from the sole perspective of men in the front-lines. In fact, "Citizen Soldiers" reads like a continuation of style, not to mention content, of "...Company K," which made "Citizen Soldiers" nearly impossible to put down. Perhaps he borrowed a little too readily from "...Company K." I only hope the reader does in fact refer to the footnotes to review sources. None-the-less, it is a great read. This from the son of one of the personal histories recounted in both "...Company K" and "Citizen Soldiers". As I get older, I only wish I had heard more straight from my Dad. Now that he's gone, reading these books is the only way left to even try to understand what he endured.
Rating:
Summary: If you think cultural diversity is something new, read this.
Review: Citizen Soldiers along with A Band of Brothers
should be recommended reading for everyone -
high school students, college students and particularly radical feminists. Don ZanFagna (jzanfagna@usa.net) Atlanta,Georgia
Rating:
Summary: superb
Review: Santa sent it--it is Outstanding and I will make it a text book for my next course on WWII(ETO) w/the American Military University.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Picture of the life of the men at the front
Review: As an American born in 1969, my only exposure to war has been through documentaries and other movies. What has never been communicated to me was the incredible hardship the GIs and British soldiers went through during the winter of '44-'45. The firsthand descriptions of the foxhole GIs brought the horror of war home to me and balanced the picture of bravery and glory forwarded in the Hollywood epics. That anyone could continue to function and go on to be victorious under those conditions is a tribute to the men and women of all the Allied countries. I recommend the book highly, especially to those readers who, like I, were never exposed to the horrors of war. I thank those who sacrificed so much to keep our world free.
Rating:
Summary: A new look at an old familiar story ...
Review: My late father donated three years to WWII & I had the temerity to be born in the middle of the conflict. Maybe those two things conspired to make WWII books a lifelong passion. I must have 10,000 pages behind me. This one is different. New slants. Literally all from the line soldiers viewpoint. The top brass catch hell from Ambrose with well documented criticism. A must read even if you have only passing interest. On a down note - I doubt we could win such a conflict today. I could go on but I won't. MWY
Rating:
Summary: riveting, but details do not justify blurb on back jacket
Review: Citizen Soldiers is beautifully written, at timespoetic, but I have caveats. I would like to thankthat "free men fight better than slaves [and] thatthe sons of democracy proved to be better soldiersthan the sons of Nazi Germany," but Ambrose doesnot argue that. Neither would I from discussionswith former members of the Wehrmacht. Both of usfind German soldiers fighting well and voluntarily for their country, if not for Hitler. Further, heshows that they were defeated in the west by air-domination and quantitatively if not qualitatively superior resources.On a different note, I found professionally disturbing and personally offensive Ambrose's use of Lt. G. Wilson's recall that a slacker identified himself s a "dirty, no-good, yellow, Jewish SOB." Even if the event happened, and Wilson recalled itforty years later, incorporating is a gratuitous ethnic slur. With one exception, reference to a murderer and thief as of Sicilian birth, Ambrose does not cite any other religious or ethnic groups in that manner or any other. Further, the thief is first identified as a colonel, then as a major. Such are a few problems with a book that I greatly enjoyed on Mexican beach.
Rating:
Summary: Numerous errors by Ambrose, soldier anecdotes excellent
Review: Not up to previous work by Ambrose. Errors in text include misidentification of photos, terrible translations of German, mix-up of units who-was-where-when
Rating:
Summary: Read this and you'll know combat : all guts, no glory
Review: First,as a historical document this book finally answered vexing questions about this era such as: why indeed did we bomb Dresden? why were the Panzers so formidable? and why didn't we march into Berlin before the Russians? For that alone it is worth the money. However the real value in this book is how Ambrose gets you inside the head of the average infantryman,presenting the soldier's all- too human, ground level perspective without sacrificing the necessary strategic and historical backdrop so necessary for general readership orientation. Through my former readings,I've learned the history, the theory,the biographies of the leaders and the grand strategy of the European Theatre in WWII. I've read the revisionists and apologists but these works never revealed on a visceral level, as Ambrose so artfully does, what was it like day in day out living in a combat unit. What would I feel if I had been born 20 years earlier and,like those in my father's generation,(who characteristically and unfortunately,rarely talked about their experiences)had to suffer the privations of combat in a just war. At least for those who fought in Europe now I know. Thank you Dr. Ambrose for bringing these realizations to me in such vivid prose. Read this book and you too will know who the real WWII heroes were and what they went through to insure the end of Fascist hegemony.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent piece of military history
Review: Ambrose's newest work is a worthy successor to his earlier book on D-Day. The author does a very effective job in combining personal recollections, offical histories, and other primary and secondary sources to take the reader from Normandy to Torgau. In addition, he's not afraid to express his opinion, or to acknowledge his debt to other historians, and to the men and women who were there and shared their stories. Of particular interest were the sections on medicine, replacement policies, training, and how the US forces adapted to constantly changing situations on the battlefield. This reader came away with a strong sense of how difficult it was to fight a coalition war against a determined foe. I strongly recommend this work to anyone, veteran or not, who desires an "insider's" view of the ground war in the ETO.
|
