This is an outstanding account of the author's time with G Company, 16th RCT, 1st Infantry Division. I've always held this book in high regard based on my first reading of it and I can now say it was even better second time around.

Gantter was a university graduate, a jazz band piano player (his love of music is very apparent, the title is from a song) and at 30, with a wife and two sons, could have avoided the draft but he chose to enlist - out of personal convictions. He is a very literate man and his maturity is also evident from his many telling observations of army life. In format, this book is best described as a diary but so many of the entries are long and detailed that they seem more like chapters. The structure varies a little and some of the text is from letters - Gantters wife, clearly a courageous and articulate person herself, prompted him to think deeply about his experiences. Gantter organised these writings shortly after the war, clearly adding in extra information and reflections and to me, creating a very fluent account of his time in the army (though perhaps slightly disorientating in the opening stages - the book was published some 12 years after his death, he may not have gotten round to fine tuning all of it to the same high standard).

Gantter joined his unit at the end of it's time in the Hurtgen, though mercifully he and the other green replacements were not sent straight forward and spent a lot of time in cold, wet foxholes during the Bulge. His activities here were fairly mundane. There is a lot on fox-hole construction and the awfulness of living this way. There are some patrols, V1s and shelling but once his unit starts to advance into Germany, this becomes a true `combat' memoir. Unlike many, Gantter writes about killing Germans - never in a boastful or sadistic way but in a manner that reveals his sensitive and reflective nature and also his changing state of mind from persistent exposure to the frontline. The first instance in particular, when he is left in no doubt of what he has just done, is poignantly described (not that it deterred him - it was only the first counterattack that afternoon). On other occasions he is quite casual about killing and once there is a suggestion of something approaching savage satisfaction. During the battle of Geisbach however, a double incident leaves him all too aware that he has snuffed out very human lives. He shots one German and when his comrade runs back to help, he shoots him too. With the rest, it is harrowing stuff. It is rare to read such innermost thoughts on what is virtually, even in a war memoir, a taboo subject.

This battle, featuring a strong German armoured attack, also reveals the brutality of house-to-house fighting. There are some atrocities, one by a German officer towards a German Red Cross girl (for helping Americans) but what stuck in my mind were the occasions when Americans killed Germans who had taken them prisoner or were trying to take them prisoner. War is hell but it is very unsettling when an act of humanity/mercy is `rewarded' with death.

One fascinating feature of this book is Gantter's detailed record of the German civilians he encountered (he speaks some German), often after he and his men had stormed their homes and while German dead still lay about. They were often pathetic in some way, some shattered in spirit, others fawning for American approval, some grateful, some cunning, some still ordering their Polish or Russian slaves around. There is also a fair bit on displaced persons and at the end the inmates of a liberated slave workers camp but all is only as a backdrop to the fighting. One jarring note on this is the love/hate relationship with US tankers. Vital as they were, many was the time the infantry would fight through and secure a village and then while they were digging in, the tankers would roar in behind them and loot everything - much to the fury of the `doggies'. Finally on combat - Gantter does not leave things out. The affect of weapons and tank treads on human bodies is graphically revealed - not in a sensationalistic way - but as clear as can be.

Gantter himself wrote that this memoir is `Intended as a combat record' - and it certainly is - however the author includes in a postscript, a series of very unsettling cases of American abuses. These include, the appalling treatment of enlisted men by some officers, profiteering and corruption and worst, the sexual exploitation of German women. For me these final pages offered a sober note to Gantter's story. He was honest about so much, that he found himself unable to ignore US criminality and I think, rightfully, recorded it all, good and bad.

As for my rating, to this point only Foley's `Visions' compares. As a writer and as a rifleman Gantter is top shelf. He doesn't write about his training but this is more than made up for by his general attention to detail, in particular his march across Germany. His writing is very detailed and he is a very articulate and sophisticated man (he writes about religion, sex and wishes he had someone to talk politics with), there are some very powerful passages indeed. I think he is clearer than Foley, who's style is a bit more breathless (they both have some brilliantly written passages though). The straightforward narrative structure is very helpful, he gives dates and places and you could plot his journey easily. Pressed to choose one? They both have many strengths but on the basis of depth and clarity I'm just tipping Gantter. Very highly recommended!