What I never learned in school about World War II, I learned from this book. I recommend it highly to anyone, from the person who enjoys reading romance stories to history buffs....there is something here for everyone. Captain Samuelson's writings are honest and sometimes painful, as he probably never intended his diaries to be published, and I commend Ms. Midlo for presenting (and thereby preserving) a bit of U.S. history, as well as a story of an extraordinary man.

Contemperaneously made diaries and correspondence of Captain Hymie Samuelson, a young Jewish man from New Orleans, introduces the reader to the life of this soldier in the jungles of the South Pacific. The author matures before your eyes during the two and one-half years he leads a segregated engineering unit in New Guinea The tragedy of his personal life reminds us that war is fought by mere mortals.