Status Updates From The Deserters: A Hidden His...

“The 442nd (Japanese-American Nisei) was probably the only American combat regiment in Europe that did not record a single desertion”

“(French) men, women and children kissed the American boys and decked them in wildflowers. Weiss thought it was more like a Broadway musical than war. The mood changed when the mayor invited the commander of Weiss’s regiment through a stone wall into a tranquil garden shaded by tall cypress trees...’All the people of my town have contributed to give you this land’, the mayor said. The land was a cemetery”

“The percentage of British casualties from mental causes was only 3 percent in the first week of the invasion (D-Day), rising to 13 percent the next. Within a month, almost a quarter of all injuries were battlefield trauma”

“One teenage deserter, a small time criminal named ‘Mad’ Frankie Fraser, later recalled, ‘The war was a criminal’s paradise. The most exciting and profitable time ever. It broke my heart when Hitler surrendered’”

This was a critically-acclaimed book which has a lot of detractors on Goodreads, so I was curious where I would fall. So far, so good. It's a complex subject, and the approach Glass is using (focusing primarily on three specific cases) will undoubtedly only scratch the surface. A lot of people can't abide "Greatest Generation" criticism and others think deserters must be cowards. The truth is more nebulous.