A review by ericwelch
Citizen Soldiers: The US Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany by Stephen E. Ambrose

4.0

Ambrose, an incredibly prolific and readable historian, focuses in this book on the soldiers who made up the ETO (European Theater of Operations). It’s at first somewhat difficult to categorize. His analysis of the men who made up the army could almost be called cheer-leading of the most nauseating kind. But after he settles in, the reality becomes more apparent. They weren’t all great guys and upstanding citizens. He points out that some thirty percent of supplies coming into ports after the invasion of Europe were stolen for resale on the black market. The picture of Milo in Catch-22 is not the grossest exaggeration. Racial problems were endemic at all levels, but Ambrose reserves his harshest judgment for the upper echelon commanders who remained clean, dry, and well-fed in the rear while front-line troops were asked to take objectives that often made little sense at great cost. Thousands of GI’s were lost to trench foot and frostbite during the winter because the boots they were issued were inadequate. Those in the rear got the good rubber-covered boots. The response of the brass was to insist that soldiers change their socks regularly, and threatened to court-martial anyone diagnosed with trench foot. The replacement system designed by Eisenhower’s staff sent inadequately trained men to the front where they often died needlessly. Had they been trained as units, with experienced sergeants and sent into battle as units fewer would have died, suggests Ambrose. British general Montgomery was clearly more interested in self-promotion than in becoming part of the team,, and Ambrose cites one example where Montgomery’s demands for more overall command had to be personally put down by Eisenhower. George Patton was obsessed with spit-and-polish. In one instance some officers just coming from the muddy front had been ordered to Third Army headquarters to get some badly needed maps. They were held up at the entrance to Third Army territory because Patton had issued orders to his MP’s that anyone entering had to maintain proper uniform standards of cleanliness, etc. It took the officers hours to get cleared and cleaned-up before they could get what they needed, holding up the offensive.
Soldiers soon learned that war was not all they expected. As others, like Paul Fussell and Gerald Lindeman (who explored the role of the American fighting man) have noted, war has been seriously overglamorized. Soldiers were psychologically unprepared for battle and the stress broke many of them down. Often they refused to take prisoners, shooting all Germans in the way whether under white flag or not. The war fundamentally altered the lives of those who survived the front lines. Americans, having never been bombed, cannot appreciate the horror of interminable artillery shelling and constant fear and deprivation.
Ambrose clearly admires what these soldiers for what they endured. In the end, the reason for fighting the war is exemplified by the tragic comments of a severely wounded German lieutenant who desperately needed a blood transfusion. Just as it was to be administered, the German insisted the medic certify there was no Jewish blood mixed in with the blood he was about to receive. The medic obviously could not, but pointed out that without the plasma he would die. The German died refusing to be transfused. They should have given it to him anyway.