Rating: 
Summary: Very Slow Paced.
Review: I have a collection of over 360 war books besides all the ones I have read in 74 years as a student of Military History. I started on this book with great expectations, but soon found it hard to keep up intrest. I begain to read every third or fourth page. I do not recomend this book to anyone that has read very many nonfiction war books on any of the modern wars. It's just too offbeat.
Rating: 
Summary: Very Personal Reminiscence.
Review: "Roll Me Over" by Raymond Gantter; sub-titled: "An Infantryman's World War II."
Ivy Books, New York, 1997.This is a very personal reminiscence of an infantryman's progress across Europe, from Normandy to Prague, during the last year of battle in World War II. Private Gantter was college educated when most of his compatriots were not. He preferred classical music to the more popular "jazz" of his buddies. R. Gantter was married while most of his fellow GIs were not. He was sensitive and, like his companions, afflicted by homesickness ...which also included being with his wife and children. His daily observations of war and its effects were recorded sporadically (on scraps of paper) and later served as the basis for this book. All of this results in a sensitive, personal and compassionate analysis of the advance of the American Army across Europe. Gantter's ability, however limited, to speak German put him in demand, and gave him additional insight into the impact of the war on civilian population, even though they were the enemy. Some incidents in his career as translator reinforced his negative opinion of the officers of the US Army. For example, he was rushed down to act as translator to find that the American officer was dealing with petty concerns: the warmth in the commandeered house, the placement of furniture and so on. Throughout the book, Gantter has very little good to say about the officers of the American Army, thereby echoing other books describing personal disappointments of the officer cast of the same era. There were few "Chesty Pullers". Gantter does present poignant imagery, as in his description of the shooting and killing of a German soldier, whose overcoat flaps were flouncing up and down as he ran way in the snow. As a side issue, his personal recollection of the house holds shrines he found in Germany (even though he called some "Bleeding Heart" when he meant "Sacred Heart") is an independent confirmation of the inability of the Nazi Party to stamp out the faith and devotion of German Catholics. (For comparison, see: "Under The Bombs" by Earl R. Beck, "The German Home Front 1942-1945" University Press of Kentucky, 1986.)
Rating:
Summary: Top grade survey of World War Two
Review: A revealing story about the infantrymen from 1943 - The Battle of the Bulge and beyond. Definately worth a read!
Rating:
Summary: Raw and Unflinching
Review: Being a huge fan of Stephen Ambrose, who seems to relate what life is really like in the trenches, Gantter omits the patriotic bent and gives a vivid description of the hardships endured. This is the finest book I have read yet on the bitter conditions faced by the soldiers at the front. While his musings on poetry and past childhood experiences can be downright annoying at times, the basic message comes across like a kick in the gut. Definitely recommended for those who wish to know what life was REALLY like, from casually watching a tank destroyer with a buddy when a sniper strikes, to having his soldiers politely refuse to clean the frozen, gummy blood off the needed weapon of a recently killed member of the platoon, this is gritty, very interesting reading.
Rating:
Summary: Reality of the troops
Review: Ganttner pieces this book together from notes and personal memory after the war. It is as disjointed and at times confusing as it must have really have been. The reality of war, the sensation of killing another human being, the shock of being caught in an explosion, the confusion, the loneliness. Gantter captures these details very well and his writting style is simple and descriptive. One of the best first person accounts I've read. Gives a better sense of continuity of an individual soldier than an Ambrose book, including the boredom of being a soldier at times. Gantter doesn't tout himself a hero, which makes the times and events he writes about even more heroic!
Rating:
Summary: Reality of the troops
Review: Ganttner pieces this book together from notes and personal memory after the war. It is as disjointed and at times confusing as it must have really have been. The reality of war, the sensation of killing another human being, the shock of being caught in an explosion, the confusion, the loneliness. Gantter captures these details very well and his writting style is simple and descriptive. One of the best first person accounts I've read. Gives a better sense of continuity of an individual soldier than an Ambrose book, including the boredom of being a soldier at times. Gantter doesn't tout himself a hero, which makes the times and events he writes about even more heroic!
Rating:
Summary: an overlooked masterpiece
Review: Ganttner's book is an oddly overlooked minor masterpiece. The military action is similar to that of George Wilson's *Company Commander*--with the bulk of the narrative recounting the rapid pursuit of the defeated and retreating Wehrmacht. Like Wilson, Gantter has a gift for describing combat action and the rhythm of daily military life, but he also has a powerful meditative and lyric talent unlike that of any other such memoir. This is easily the most perceptive, morally sensitive, and emotionally intelligent account of this part of the war from the front-line soldier's perspective. Ganttner has all the standard combat soldier's feeling of comraderie and of pride in victory, but he also has enough moral sensitivity to register in exquisite detail the anguish of the terrified German civilians. I suppose the book has been overlooked in part because readers who are interested in front-line action are often simple-minded and morally obtuse, and readers who are receptive to humane reflection and lyric sensitivity do not look for those qualities in memoirs of war. If you are fascinated with the experience of war and also appreciate writing of a high literary order, this book will offer a kind of satisfaction seldom found.
Rating:
Summary: an overlooked masterpiece
Review: Ganttner's book is an oddly overlooked minor masterpiece. The military action is similar to that of George Wilson's *Company Commander*--with the bulk of the narrative recounting the rapid pursuit of the defeated and retreating Wehrmacht. Like Wilson, Gantter has a gift for describing combat action and the rhythm of daily military life, but he also has a powerful meditative and lyric talent unlike that of any other such memoir. This is easily the most perceptive, morally sensitive, and emotionally intelligent account of this part of the war from the front-line soldier's perspective. Ganttner has all the standard combat soldier's feeling of comraderie and of pride in victory, but he also has enough moral sensitivity to register in exquisite detail the anguish of the terrified German civilians. I suppose the book has been overlooked in part because readers who are interested in front-line action are often simple-minded and morally obtuse, and readers who are receptive to humane reflection and lyric sensitivity do not look for those qualities in memoirs of war. If you are fascinated with the experience of war and also appreciate writing of a high literary order, this book will offer a kind of satisfaction seldom found.
Rating:
Summary: My favorite account of WWII
Review: I agree with the reviewer from Nevada who said that this account adds a fullness and a human dimension to the war that is missing from all the other books on the war. While I can see where one reviewer got annoyed by the "holier than thou" parts, to me these were the best parts of the book. My father was also an infantryman during WWII and the parts that the other reviewer called "holier than thou" were exactly the same things my father told me about the war whenever I asked him about it. I think the thoughts that my father and Mr. Gantter had probably went through the minds of a lot of other G.I.s This book I think is a service and a tribute to the infantrymen of WWII. While they may have been trained to kill and had to kill, they never lost sight of the real tragedy of mass warfare, even as they participated in it. A salute to Mr. Gantter for a fine book.
Rating:
Summary: Roll Me Over
Review: I am a veteran of the 78th Infantry Div., and have written about this same period of time. I find this book very well written and quite authenic. Mr. Gantter was a very intelligent man, and I would have liked to meet him.
| 
