An Honor to Serve Book

They came from the length and breath of the United States, from every walk of life. They were the sons and daughters of privileged families and immigrants alike.

An Honor to Serve recounts the World War II experiences of forty-five extraordinary people, including Jesse Lesico of Koloa, Hawaii, a veteran of the battles in New Guinea and the Philippines; Gotfried Pletzer, a German-American from New Jersey, who fought against the German Army in France and deep into Germany; Thomas Katana of Latrobe, Pennsylvania, severely wounded in the heavy fighting near Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge; Eric Leiseroff, a Jew born in Dresden, Germany, who participated in the Nazi death camp at Ohrdruf, only fifty miles from the German town in which his family lived; Jonathan Lukowsky of Ford City, Pennsylvania, a sailor aboard the USS Santee, when that ship took a direct hit from a Japanese Kamikaze during the battle of Leyte Gulf; James Jochen, of College Station, Texas, who fought into the heart of the Third Reich with the 89th Division; Earl Woodard of Naylor, Missouri, a B-1 7 navigator who eluded capture with the help of French resistance fighters after his plane was downed over France; Percy Hiatt, of Emporia, Kansas, who fought in the jungles of New Guinea; Marjorie Butterfield, United States Army Nurse Corps, who witnessed the brutality of the War while serving as a nurse in Patton's Third Army.

Into the cauldron of World War II, America committed a military of 17 million men and women, nearly 12% of the nation's population at the time.

Included in this book are eye-witness accounts to uncommon bravery, boredom, bloodshed, brutality, gruesome humor and an almostnonchalant attitude toward atrocities committed in the heat of battle during that terrible conflict. Fear is also a common element in these experiences lived so many decades ago.

Alert readers will also sense the hope inherent in the national psyche at the time, a hope for peace and a return to normalcy.

This book is richly illustrated with photos, drawings and other visuals that combine with text to provide a unique look into the personal recollections of the men and women who lived through their wartime service. The photos included here give graphic testimony to the fact that today's frail octogenarians were once not far removed from childhood when they marched off to fight some of the most storied battles in the history of our world's wars.