Foot Soldier by Roscoe Blunt

 

This one literally hit home, and very hard. I will be sorting this one out for a very long time.

I knew of these battles, and soldiering processes Blunt wrote so well about. My first stepfather, who became a psychiatrist after the war. Over time I have learned why, and Foot Soldier marched right into my mind here. My stepfather, and Author Roscoe "Rockie" Blunt both served in the 84th Division in Europe. My stepfather was a medic, and unnamed medics were noted four times. I had to wonder if that stepdad was, at least, one of them.

They were also both musicians. From reading, I doubt if they were ever in the same foxhole for even a brief drum and trumpet stanza talk. So many things are probed in my mind here.

These battles The "Railsplitters" had against the SS, and other atrocity-committing Nazis were real. So is PTSD. I grew up with it under the same roof. Each day I have enhanced understanding of what they went through over there. We hear about the murder of the Jews by the thousands, but not the systematic execution of unarmed Belgian civilians directly outside of small rural churches, and there were many that the 84th discovered in their grizzly job. They also helped liberate two slave and concentration camps. I had heard that Bob was so enraged when in one of them that he picked up a gun and shot a female guard who was machine-gunning prisoners.

I am so glad that I never had to go to war.

Unfortunately, I doubt that Bob ever mentally survived that war. Physically, he only lost the top of a finger to a grenade that disfigured some friends.

I will verify that Blunt's Foot Soldier gets as close to the real thing as a print book can.
Also, his description of the 84th's Atlantic crossing was superb, and easily the best I have ever read.

My dates read here is a mere estimate. I was spinning off into my imagination of the European Theater of Operations, Bob, and the 84th every time I thought about what I would say in my review.