Before Their Time: A Memoir

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: Book was not what I thought it would be. I thought there would be more focus on the battlefield and what it was like. The author only had a very brief foray into battle and that was it. The rest of the book is tedium about training, complaints about military life, and what happened to him afterwards. This is not meant to disrespect the author at all. He should be very proud of his accomplishments and we should salute him as a patriot and a soldier. But his memoirs as a book was boring at best.

Rating:
Summary: What Really Happened
Review: Don't miss the point of this book, it is not about combat, heroism, patriotism and the tactical history of the war. The story here, the reason that this book is so compelling and important, is the realitively simple story that is one of hundreds of thousands of men like Kotlowitz who served during WWII.
These young men went to war from the security of home and high school during without knowing how the war would turn out. Many of them lost their lives, a very few became famous heros, most came home and lived their lives. What was it like to be an average GI? It was frustrating, frightening and difficult but worth it all in the end.
This is a real story, not a lionozation. Don't come here for the false inspiration of a sanitized account. read this book and be inspired by what the soldiers of WWII experienced on our behalf.

Rating:
Summary: left so much to be desired
Review: I had first looked at this book because it offered the insights of a combat infantryman in WWII. I bought it with the expectation that I could learn at least a little of how men reacted in combat, how they lived, how they interacted... Instead, I ended up reading about Kotlowitz's ONE experience in combat, in which he didn't even take an active part, and then his subsequent shell-shock which kept him in the rear and out of harms way for the rest of the war.

I must admit, Kotlowitz deserves some applause for his description of WWII era infantry training methods. No other book have I come across that has accomplished the same. Some of his observations and recollections prove to be quite educational and interesting to read. Yet, practically the first half of the book is about training, and before he even arrived in Europe. The rest of the book looks very quickly upon his one combat engagement, and then drags on until the end about his little adventures as a shell-shocked grunt far in the rear. At no point is this a "CATCH-22" however. This book pales in comparison.

If you're looking for insights into how a soldier lives with combat related neuroses-by all means, try reading this. You'll most likely be disappointed at the sparse presentation and Kotlowitz's seemingly inconsequential experiences. Yet, if you really want to get a grasp and appreciation for the veteran in active combat, go find something else.

This book appears to be just another jump on the bandwagon, just another man trying to publish his experiences (however paltry they may be) because of the high demand right now for first-hand accounts of WWII.

Rating:
Summary: Another Perspective
Review: I read this book in an attempt to learn more about my father who was in the 104th regiment but was very disapointed (although i read it in two sittings). Kotlowitz comes across a snob looking down on his fellow combattants and officers. The YD spent more than 100 days on the front lines, arriving after D Day, and remaining until VE Day. I'm sure Mr. K. needed to unload this baggage, but it doesnt seem to do respect to the dogfaces who never left the Horseshoe, and the rest who stayed out in the field for the duration. I must qualify that I am not an ex Infantryman, and have never been in a real firefight, although I did spend a year in RVN from 68-69, where we were continually mortared and rocketed. I cannot fully realize what Mr. K. experienced first hand. If anyone knows where i can a copy of the History of the 104th Inf. Rgt. i can be reached at [e-mail]

Rating:
Summary: Pass this one over
Review: I recently received this book as a present, and I can't recommend it to anyone. The author is a good writer, but there isn't a story here. Except for one chapter, the book is boring and I looked forward to finishing it. Do you self a favor and read something else.

Rating:
Summary: Insightful, moving memoir of an infantryman
Review: In a society seemingly addicted (or at least benumbed by) on-line polls, the personal, written memoir is an all too often overlooked source of experience-- and wisdom. This compact volume is the wartime memoir of Robert Kotlowitz, who served with the 26th Infantry Division during the Second World War. Deeply (and appropriately) personal, it shares a place on my bookshelf with Mowat's, _And No Birds Sang_, and Sledge's _With the Old Breed_.

Even for those of us who have not served in combat, Kotlowitz's thumbnail word-sketches of his fellow soldiers and their dealings with one another have the hard edge of sometimes uncomfortable truth. Part of this story is untold, and cannot be told, but only lived. I deeply respect Kotlowitz as he tries, with each line, to be as scrupulously honest and accurate as he can be in conveying his experience.

Towards the end of this book, the author brings up the valid point that the majority of World War II veterans who survived the war have since died. As that generation passes, memoirs of the sort written by Kotlowitz are increasingly important. This is war, at the infantryman's level, and in our rush to embrace "smart weapons," we had best not neglect the voices, such as Kotlowitz's, that still resound from cramped, cold, filthy foxholes.

The candor Kotlowitz employs in this straight-forward narrative is in the best tradition of those combat veterans who, in the past 30 years, have tried to be forthcoming about their experiences.

Rating:
Summary: HE NEVER FIRED A SHOT BUT HE KNOWS THE HELL OF WAR
Review: Kotlowitz' memoir is just one bit of personal history that reflects the additutes and experience of a million privates during WWII. Filled with irony, this account vividly details what it was like for Kotlowitz, a nineteen year old grunt (and virgin) to train and participate in battle in the European theater. The first half of the memoir reveals the attitudes and personalities of the men of C company, as they are forced to live together, train together, and fight together.His describtions are so vivid, the reader becomes part of the company, and it becomes easy to imagine what it was like to live with these men. The second half of the book is the horrific account of the only battle of C company, of which there were just three survivors. It must have been painful for Kotlowitz, as he relives the night time attack by a German infrantry unit. Kotlowitz begins the battle playing dead, face down in the mud. He then spends the next twelve hours in cold black silence, as he listens to his buddies cry out for their mothers, get picked off by snipers, and slowly die screaming. All of this horror, and he never fired a shot. His guild of surviving has inspired this freightening and well written memoir. An excellent read for anyone who is interested in seeing the war through the eyes of a private.

Rating:
Summary: Yet Another WWII Memoir
Review: Somehow, World War II memoirs never really make it to the level of their Great War predecessors. The likes of Robert Graves, Edmund Blunden, Siegfried Sassoon and Ernst Junger are rarely to be found among their younger peers. The great exception to this admittedly vast generalization is of course E.B. Sledge and "With the Old Breed."

Robert Kotlowitz served as an infantryman in France. His book treads the well worn path: the circle of friends in the unit, the quirks of the officers and NCOs, the blunders of basic training, the journey overseas, the initial boredom, the final shock of battle, the many who did not live to write their memoirs. The intrinsic pathos of war redeems this story as it does most others like it, and there are some memorable passages of descriptive writing. One concludes, however, that "Before Their Time" remains part of the herd.

Rating:
Summary: More than a memoir of the Second World War
Review: Stephen Ambrose has awakened a deep - and justified - interest in the passing generation that fought the last great war. His works effect us because they are about real individuals and their personal experiences of battle. Robert Kotlowitz fought in the same theater that Ambrose can only touch through the stories of others. Kotlowitz delves deep into his own story and exposes universal and timeless fears, as he mercilessly recounts his modest role in the US liberation of France.

In so doing, he documents a seemingly futile and ephemeral contribution to the Allied war effort by one small company of men. At the age of 19 or 20, he almost lost his sanity and virtually all of his closest army buddies in the space of a few tortured hours in the combat zone.

This book is much more than a simple memoir of one man's war. It certainly was never intended as an adventure yarn. It will effect deeply anyone who has wondered what it is really like to be exposed to the horror of war. It is one more tremendous contribution to the storehouse of World War Two experiences that are being left to us by a passing generation.

Rating:
Summary: Reflections of a combat infantryman
Review: This book was written years after the events described occurred.Kotlowitz was obviously haunted by his brief but terrifying initiation as a combat soldier, only three members of his platoon survived a combat patrol in France.It took Kotlowitz fifty years to contact one of the other survivors, a man who was a close buddy.I think this book compares well with "Flights of Passage" by Samuel L. Hynes who was a Marine Aviator in the Pacific. Both gentlemen wrote their memoirs decades after the war,and even though both admitted that some memories were foggy ,they tell it the way they remembered it,warts and all.These books show if nothing else, the trauma of war is with its survivors for their entire lives. I highly recommend "Before Their Time" by Robert Kotlowitz and "Flights of Passage" by Samuel L. Hynes.