My War

Pretty compelling, although could have used a better copy editor. ( )

You have to like his snarky, crotchety style to really enjoy this book. He relates an event where, as a member of a 155mm howitzer load crew during training in England, he disobeys orders from the artillery officer. He deliberately loads incorrect numbers of powder charges into the breech to ensure that the shell misses it's target. Thus, the gun crew's inaccurate performace would reflect poorly on the officer he did't like and somehow damage this officer's reputation with the command staff. Andy seemed to find this incident humorous and crowed about it for a bit. As a veteran, I found this to be unconscionable especially under war time conditions. Nothing remotely amusing about it at all. This really jaundiced the rest of the book for me.

His experiences were real, many dangerous but his opinionated writing style wore me down. I couldn't wait to close the cover. ( )

Andy Rooney was a Sergeant during World War II. He was detailed to the military newspaper, The Stars and Stripes. He reported from England, France and Germany. At the end of the war he spent a short time reporting from India and Burma. He reported the events when our forces captured the bridge at Remagen and crossed the Rhine. I enjoyed reading his impressions of Ernest Hemingway, other reporters and some of the high ranking United States officers. He often comments on how people he met during the war made their livings afterwards. ( )

War as only Andy Rooney can tell it. ( )

Lately I've been reading stories about war, an unfortunate constant of human history, I'm afraid. Tales about WWII, or "The Last Good War" (a book I read many years ago), as Studs Terkel called it, abound, but I especailly recommend this one. My War, by Andy Rooney (yep, the same bushy-eyebrowed old grump you see on 60 Minutes every week), is a true gem, full of his homespun self-deprecating bits of humor and wisdom, along with the expected grim and grisly stories about the carnage that is war. As to the importance of his wartime experience, Rooney says right up front, "My life was never the same again." As a young reporter (his army ID photo looks startlingly like Audie Murphy, who of course penned his own memoir, To Hell and Back) for The Stars and Stripes, Rooney got up close and personal with both the air and ground wars in Europe, and also traveled to India and China, rubbing shoulders with Ernie Pyle, Bill Mauldin and Walter Cronkite. One particular line from the book has stayed with me: "I laugh, bitterly, when I hear the phrase, 'He gave his life for his country.' No one gives his life. His life is taken." Rooney is a newspaperman and a reporter, but more than anything else he is a damn fine writer who simply tells it like he sees it. - Tim Bazzett, author of Soldier Boy and Love, War & Polio ( )