Rating: 
Summary: Good ending.....
Review: I am glad Burgett put out this book as it is a perfect ending to the series. I am sure he had not planned on writing so many books, but they are all so good, I think we all would have missed out if he hadn't. Read them all in order, one after another for the full effect. Good stuff, enjoy!
Rating: 
Summary: Over sexed, over paid and over rated.
Review: I had just finished Band of Brothers and bought this book as a companion piece to Ambrose's book (to get a different perspective on the same theater of war by another writer). However, I was disappointed with this book. One of the critics here said the book read like a travelog with not much action. I have to agree. The book was getting a bit boring until the description of the liberation of the concentration camps at Landsberg and then the occupation of Berchtesgaden. These last two chapters made up for the rest of the book. I did come across two passages in this book that mirrored two episodes in Band of Brothers. One was the description of the wounded German soldier who could be heard gurgling because of wounds in his lungs; and the GI's efforts to kill him with grenades. The passage was almost word for word what Ambrose had described. Huummm..... Anyway, I agree with another critic that I should have read the books in order that Burgett wrote them. I won't let this keep me from reading the other books he wrote. This book was OK but was a bit short on substance and therefore, somewhat overrated.
Rating:
Summary: Over sexed, over paid and over rated.
Review: I have read Burgett's first three books and they are great reads.
In comparison with those first three books, this is an average read. Why? Very little action. It almost seems like a travel guide with Burgett saying in essence--I went here and then I went there. Burgett is a good author, but I think he is trying to capitalize on his combat experience. His first three books detail the combat experience, but this fourth book could have been cut down to fifty pages, and attached onto his last book. Because of the publisher, they make Burgett get another book out of very minimal material. I don't think there is a fifth book here Don, so don't try.
That said, Burgett is a great author, so please read his first three books about the Normandy Invasion, Battle of the Bulge, and the Holland Campaign. For the WWII historian, these show the true experiences of an American soldier.
Rating:
Summary: The final book of the series.
Review: I have read Burgett's first three books and they are great reads.
In comparison with those first three books, this is an average read. Why? Very little action. It almost seems like a travel guide with Burgett saying in essence--I went here and then I went there. Burgett is a good author, but I think he is trying to capitalize on his combat experience. His first three books detail the combat experience, but this fourth book could have been cut down to fifty pages, and attached onto his last book. Because of the publisher, they make Burgett get another book out of very minimal material. I don't think there is a fifth book here Don, so don't try.
That said, Burgett is a great author, so please read his first three books about the Normandy Invasion, Battle of the Bulge, and the Holland Campaign. For the WWII historian, these show the true experiences of an American soldier.
Rating:
Summary: Possibly Burgett's most powerful book
Review: In what may be his last book, Donald Burgett has left us with insightful and chilling depictations of life in the 101st Airborne during World War Two. Entering the war as a teenager, readers of his books seem to grow with him, as well as being grateful for only being able to read about his exploits and not experience them. Beyond the Rhine is a more informational book than his other books. While battles still rage, the experiences of this book rely more on chasing the Germans down while the war quickly ends. What the book accomplishes is the thoughts of Burgett over the war, his maturity, and the realization of not only his readers but also themselves that the war is ending. The question "What's next?" seems to lie deep within the book's pages. In "Currahee", he brought to the horrors and chaos of Normandy, America's first full scale effort into Europe since WWI. In "Road to Arnhem", he brought us to Holland and the depressive defeat of the American and British troops to secure the keys bridges into Germany. In "Seven Roads to Hell", he brought us to Bastogne and the fear of entrapment when they were surrounded by Germans for weeks. Now, with "Beyond the Rhine", Burgett brings us to the wars end, and a trek through Germany that is filled with concentration camps, ruined towns, and fleeing German troops from the Soviets. I hope this isn't the end for his books, but if so, hats off to Mr. Burgett. I can't fathom any other books so honest about a young man's journey through World War Two from a American perspective. Mr. Burgett, you are the man.
Rating: 
Summary: The Final Days
Review: In what may become his last book, Donald Burgett closes his account of A co., 506th, 101st with the long walk from Bastogne to war's end. Given an all too brief respite after their magnificent stand at Bastogne during the Bulge, the 101st was called upon again and convoyed for 36 hours into the Alsace region near the town of Wickersheim. There they remained at the ready in the path of one of Germany's last gasps, "Operation Nordwind". From Bastonge on, the outfit saw only limited battle. The anxiety of a night patrol by boat across the Moder River and a few minor skirmishes, while well written, are a far cry from the bloody pace of the earlier books. During this period, men still died, but the war was all but over. Burgett tells of doing morning exercise on March 24th, 1945 and looking skyward to see over 5,000 Allied aircraft heading into Germany. At Remagen the patrol that crossed the Rhine some few weeks before became the vanguard of what was to be the largest river crossing in history. Three armies under Montgomery had crossed the Rhine that morning at daybreak. As Normandy, Market Garden and the Bulge formed the nucleus of the three prior books, the horrors the 101st witnessed at the concentration camp at Landsberg form the core of this latest volume. Told in Burgett's straightforward, clean style, the insanity and demonic results of Nazi Germany leaves the reader with an unreal nausea. Not even animals are capable of this degree of cruelty. It seems to this reviewer that from this point forward, the writing becomes more introspective. From Burgett's reflecting upon the hundreds of thousands of Germans surrendering along the highways, to his watching at night the sight of a full division singing by candle light as they walked home defeated but glad to be going home, to his walking through Flanders Field blanketed with red poppies, his style becomes far more lyrical than his earlier writing. Upon hearing that Japan had surrendered he came to understand that he had lived; that he and the others were going home. "We were to go home instead. Go home to America. America- it seemed to be a dream now, a misty wonderland that had existed only in our minds." God bless all of them, they sure as hell earned that and more.
Rating:
Summary: Another 5-Star book from Don Burgett
Review: Ironically, the more I read the works of Mr. Burgett, the more I understand, to his credit, that despite his direct presentation, it is all but impossible to have anything but the remotest idea of what it is like to be a front row participant in total war by reading a book. A book can certainly help one appreciate what he went through in Europe, but there's no way we can know what he now knows. I suppose you could have a better understanding of what it was like for him if you read the book in a hole half-filled with freezng water while someone tried to drop high explosives on your head. A common theme in all of Burgett's books is that there is much honor in what he and his brothers did, but no glory. The troopers in "Beyond the Rhine" follow a pattern familiar to those who have read Burgett's first 3 books. They are thrown into combat, lightly armed, before any other units, or where other units have failed. Men who are too young to vote, and who have only known one president their whole lives fight and die at the level of animals. The survivors count their blessings and assemble after battle to gather their garrison bags full of personal possessions only to learn that their bags have (as usual) been cut open and looted by the rear echelon troops tasked with storing and delivering the bags to the front. The most compelling chapter of the book describes what the author saw at the concentration camp at Landsberg. I finished the book feeling greatful that men like Mr. Burgett did what they did so that my kids will likely never have to. "Beyond the Rhine" is the final chapter in a story that is destined to become known as the finest first-person account of combat produced to date.
Rating:
Summary: "What was it like?"
Review: Nobody but a combat soldier can answer the question: "What was it like?" For those of us who have never experienced battle we can only try to imagine it. Mr. Burgett urges us to hunker down into his foxhole as the carnage of noman's land drops onto our laps like a screaming mortar shell. His unbelievable experiences make for a series of WWII memoirs unsurpassed in their vivid telling. I have read all four of his books-in chronological order-and I cannot imagine a more genuine and descriptive account of a trooper's brutal experiences in the European theater of WWII. I wish I could meet the man to shake his hand. His dedication and sense of honor and sacrifice make me proud to be an American, and very grateful indeed for having known of such combat men as Donald R. Burgett.
Rating:
Summary: "What was it like?"
Review: Nobody but a combat soldier can answer the question: "What was it like?" For those of us who have never experienced battle we can only try to imagine it. Mr. Burgett urges us to hunker down into his foxhole as the carnage of noman's land drops onto our laps like a screaming mortar shell. His unbelievable experiences make for a series of WWII memoirs unsurpassed in their vivid telling. I have read all four of his books-in chronological order-and I cannot imagine a more genuine and descriptive account of a trooper's brutal experiences in the European theater of WWII. I wish I could meet the man to shake his hand. His dedication and sense of honor and sacrifice make me proud to be an American, and very grateful indeed for having known of such combat men as Donald R. Burgett.
Rating:
Summary: The Grand Finale!!!
Review: This 4th installment in the story of Donald Burgett and the WWII
experiences of the 101st Airborne Division is a fitting end to a fine combat memoir. The author picks up where he left off in "Seven Roads to Hell" in Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge and traces his experiences from crossing the Rhine River to the end of the war in Hitler's vacation resort in the Alps. Aside from his usual description of battle with the enemy, he also makes liberal use of noncombat scenarios during his unit's advances. His writings will be the standard against which future authors' wartime reminiscences will be compared. I highly recommend this book to all WWII history enthusiasts.
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