Battle Rattle
This week on Veterans Radio we look back at World War II through the eyes of 94 year old WWII veteran Roger Boras.
“The war has changed me in ways that will take the better part of my life to understand, let alone make peace with,” begins Roger Boas in his thoughtful, compelling account of World War II. As part of the Fourth Armored Division, he found himself at the spearhead of the Allied thrust into Europe. His memoir, Battle Rattle: A Last Memoir of World War II, re-creates both the tension of the battlefield and the camaraderie behind the front line. It also relates his harrowing experience as a Jew of being one of the first American soldiers to discover a Nazi concentration camp. Boas reveals the powerful impact of war on those who fight them.
“The veterans of WWII are leaving us now, more and more of them each day and year stepping into our collective memory of the sacrifices they made nearly three-quarters of a century ago. Battle Rattle is a moving, honest and highly readable memoir of a young man, now 94 years old, who fought from Normandy to the German surrender as a forward observer for an artillery battalion in Patton’s army is an opportunity to more fully appreciate what young naive Americans learned about war and killing in the American campaign to end the war. Of particular interest to me and a point I had never thought about, was the contrast in the realities of men dying every day in the face of determined German resistance while back home people had already begun to talk about how the war was coming to a close. Roger Boas is a hero, not because of some extraordinary feat of arms a la Audie Murphy, but because he did his duty day in and day out knowing that each day could well be his last. You ought to have this book in your library just to remind you of the courage of those millions who stepped forward when the call came.” Bob Pearson rated it 4 stars on Goodreads.com.
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All Gave Some. Some Gave All.
Always Remember
