When I was a young boy, every so often, my father would fascinate me with tales of World War II. He was a Sherman medium tank co-driver and as such, subsequently the .30 caliber bow gunner. His stories never involved hardship of any kind and he only told maybe five or six stories again and again that had to do with funny, or ironic, situations in which he was involved. Even the story of how he had earned his Bronze Star Medal one very cold night in Germany, was edited for a young boy.

As I grew older the stories were told less often with each passing year until at last the stories ended completely. Finally, not long ago, for some reason I asked him something about his service. But this time, as he retold the stories, he began to choke up and his eyes started to glisten with tears. That was the last time I ever asked him anything about the war.

I wondered for years why, suddenly, it had come to upset him so badly to recount the events that had once come so easy to him years prior. Then it dawned on me. I realized that, as a child, he knew I had no concept of the realities of war. They were just stories. But as I grew older--old enough to understand what he'd gone through---what he had to do, the stories became real to him once again. They weren't just stories anymore, they were experiences to relive.

This book wasn't written so much for my dad as for my nephews, nieces, and the generations to follow. We all need to remember what these brave veterans did for us some sixty years ago.

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