Unsung Valor: A GI's Story of World War II

Rating:
Summary: From a comrade
Review: This is a first hand story of a typical infantry soldier involved in the breaching of Hitler's defence along the German border. When ordinary GIs were sent up against stronger forces, fortifications and armor with nothing more than rifles and their own courage. I could relate as I was a member of the same outfit that sacrified their lives and limbs to no avail.

Rating:
Summary: A Gift Indeed
Review: Unsung Valor by A. Cleveland Harrison is an outstanding account of an important period in the development of our national identity and an inspiring and powerful gift from one generation to the next.

Whether traveling with Harrison through the beautifully detailed landscape of a vanished era at Ole Mss in the early 1940s or tracing every harrowing step of his journey through a mine field near Orscholz in January of 1945, the reader is mesmerized by the power of a truly gifted writer. This compelling story of one man's journey through World War II certainly commands our respect because it is so skillfully told, but its most powerful achievement may be the way in which it brings this period in our history so vividly to life for many of us whose fathers lived through it, but found it difficult to share.

The book springs to life with the sort of detail and vibrancy that makes the reader believe they are being led on a personal tour through history by someone who is not only knowledgeable but passionate about his subject . It reads like you're sitting next to a cherished relative as they unfurl an astonishingly rich tapestry kept carefully in a chest for years; a tapestry they had a quite a hand in making, and one that has only grown more resplendent over time. As the tapestry unfolds, you sit spellbound realizing that something important is being shared, something that informs our historical perspective and our national character; but what really grabs you is that something personal is being shared here as well-- something that profoundly connects us to the courage, faith and integrity of the "greatest generation".

And that is quite a gift indeed.

Rating:
Summary: More than a book for guys!
Review: Unsung Valor: A GI's Story of World War II is a war memoir that will appeal to women as much as men. Cleveland Harrison's recollections reach deeper and wider emotionally than the usual battlefield tales. The reluctant draftee's journey from basic training to college, to combat, and finally to occupation duty in Germany does not put women off with a lot of combat details but strikes a nice balance between the military and the human emotions. Harrison's descriptions of his sensations in every place and time are so detailed and clear that one learns to care what happens to him and his buddies.

A reluctant but good soldier, who was surprisingly innocent and firm in his integrity, Harrison reveals more of his attitudes toward women than is ordinarily found in military narratives. His respect and relations with his mother and his college sweetheart (to whom he is secretly engaged), and the women he later encounters in training and service--a math professor and a group of sorority sisters at college, nurses in military hospitals, State Department officers and secretaries, and WACs in military government overseas--make Unsung Valor a unique wartime reading experience for women.