If You Survive

Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly Honest and Terse First-Person history
Review: Wilson doesn't spend two paragraphs explaining how the snow clung to the trees. He tells you about how the bombs sounded as they landed near him and how he saw his friends get cut down in the prime of life. You get a pretty good feeling for what it must have been like to dig a foxhole and wait for the mortar fire. It's scary the way he relates having come upon on a bunch of lost Germans who could have killed him had he paused a few seconds. When he describes the onset of winter and his men without the proper protective gear losing digits to frostbite, you can just imagine some bureaucrat sitting by a toasty fire promising to get on that tomorrow.

It's amazing that Wilson could write such a detailed history forty years after the events occurred, but maybe even more amazing that he doesn't embellish the situations. There is little reflection on an event because he's off describing the next firefight or lost buddy.

The most frustrating parts of the book were seeing raw officers replacing fallen soldiers rather than promoting the battle proven officers in the field. It was not only unfair, but unsafe and yet the bigwigs away from the fighting didn't know the difference.

The title refers to a commander who told Wilson before he went into battle that he'd be promoted if he survived. The promotions were slower coming than his successes and yet the war is such a long way away from this retired insurance salesman that he doesn't seem that upset about his treatment. It turned out to be the experience of his life.

Rating:
Summary: If You Survive
Review: Wow! I just finished listening to this book on tape and was amazed by the story George Wilson tells. It is compelling and I could not stop listening. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the incredible strength of the human soul. Mr. Wilson shares his own account of his service in the Army through the closing years of World War II in such a way that you wonder how anyone survived. I felt grateful for the sacrifice so many made to free our world and am thankful that he took the time to share this story.

Rating:
Summary: If You Survive
Review: Wow! I just finished listening to this book on tape and was amazed by the story George Wilson tells. It is compelling and I could not stop listening. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the incredible strength of the human soul. Mr. Wilson shares his own account of his service in the Army through the closing years of World War II in such a way that you wonder how anyone survived. I felt grateful for the sacrifice so many made to free our world and am thankful that he took the time to share this story.