My Comrades and Me Book

Getting out of the hell of war alive, Brown frequently reminds the reader, is the single most important thing on the mind of every combat soldier. Those who forgot that, even for a moment, never made it home.

"What does it take to survive combat?" asks Brown. "Mostly luck." Relying on luck, however, is not enough, adds the former sergeant, who himself was wounded by German bullets.

Many of the more than seventy very short chapters in My Comrades and Me describe brushes with death. Best read in small batches rather than in lengthy sittings, Brown's meaty snippets tell the reader what it looks, sounds, and feels like to be shot at—and not just by the enemy.

He chillingly relates the sight of a tank round coming at him. He rages with anger at being strafed by his country's own planes, but calmly explains how to tell when an incoming barrage is going to hit your position rather than pass overhead to bombard someone else. "If you hear it, it has already passed you," explains Brown, noting that the shell from an 88-millimeter German gun travels at four times the speed of sound.

My Comrades and Me, however, is not all grime, gore, and grit. "I learned you could take humor into battle if you chose to," recalls Brown, who incorporates that lesson into his memoir. The result is an engaging, authentic, and very human story. As such, it would not be out of place on a shelf with the works of Leon Uris, Robert Leckie, Norman Mailer, and other honest chroniclers of infantry combat in World War II.

Mark G. McLaughlin

ForeWord Clarion Review