Source: Amazon.com
Date: December 3, 2008

I will not reitterate the many splendid points the two previous reviews made. I will agree that this is by far Garland's best. By employing an inventive, multi-source narrative he has broken significant new ground in historic non-fiction writing. Yet it is also his most important book, one that has debuted at exactly the right time. Not only is this a riveting account of one soldier's anonymous odyssey through war, it is a frank, honest, boldface portrait of the irrevocable damage warfare inflicts upon its participants. A must read for today's generation, which will be wrestling with the soul-draining damage of today's conflicts for the rest of their lives... just like Garland has. We can only hope that they will triumph over it as he has.

Source: Amazon.com
Date: February 19, 2009

Reading Unknown Soldiers allows one to visit the war far below the level of the "experts" who deliberate on tactics and stratedy and larger scenes. One learns about war from the bottom up, all of the small important individual nuances available from himself and his mates. The author taken from Harvard for his duties shows the ability to present the feelings of himself and his comrads in a realistic way and still connect with those remaining behind and hoping. This is very much like a coffee gathering years later by all of the participants.

He uses the connection to Bill Mauldin comfortably and smoothly. It is nicely done. It is realistic.

- Harry J. Herder

Source: Amazon.com
Date: April 24, 2009

Excellent. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in a look into the lives of the actual soldiers of WWII.

- Philipp Vollhardt

Source: Amazon.com
Date: October 3, 2008

I've never read a WW II book quite like this one. Using journals, letters, photos, documentary sources, and collective memory, Garland traces the career of his platoon as it fought its way through Italy, France, and into Germany. Garland's methodology gives us real sense of "the fog of war," but it is his humanity and wisdom that enable us to live - and die - with the men who would become like brothers to him. Never far behind this immediate drama are the politics and machinations of the higher-ups. Garland's anger at the waste of life occasioned by the poor decisions of such men is breath taking. All in all, a remarkable achievement.

- Gregory Gibson

Source: Amazon.com
Date: October 16, 2008

I have read most of Joe Garland's books. This book, however, is quite different from anything else he has written. I knew reviewing this book would be both interesting and a challenge. I began my review with two questions in mind: who is Joe Garland of World War II, and is he capable of meeting his high standard in a different genre than he has ever written before?

I thought this book was going to be an autobiography of his experiences as a member of the Intelligence and Reconnaissance Platoon (I&R), Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, 157th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division (ID) in World War II. It was, to a point. After he was injured and sent back to Italy the narrative becomes more like an oral history as told by his comrades. Mr. Garland has employed quite an interesting style that runs throughout his account of I&R in WWII. At appropriate points he inserted portions of an actual entry from the unauthorized record he kept. He also inserted sketches he drew or part of an interview he had with one of his buddies while writing the book. These tidbits are really enjoyable and contribute a great deal to his narrative. He has photographs of his buddies and inserts them in appropriate places: when he introduces them. You get the opportunity to place a face with a name. I found myself referring back to those pictures every now and again just so I could keep that person's face in my memory. This technique further helped bring Mr. Garland's experiences to life!

As soon as you think you know his style, he adds a new twist. Garland's narrative continued to be gripping and then he changed his style. He shares a poem he wrote and recorded in his journal (pp. 214-216). His versatility is amazing. He soon reverted to the style to which I had become accustomed.

In chapter 11, he talked about the combat movement of I&R platoon from Rians to Livron. Garland told about when the 175th Regiment, I&R platoon's parent, met the French Résistance, especially Henry Siaud and his two friends. Garland began to include 'extensive excerpts' (15 pages) of Siaud's memoirs, which Garland translated himself. How perfectly these fit into the narrative. We now had the perspective of the liberated.

For the rest of the wartime exploits of I&R, Garland integrated Siaud's memoirs, thoughts from his notebook, and parts of interviews he conducted many years later with his wartime buddies. His weaving of all these elements together made his narrative more personal and intimate. I felt like I was a member of his unit, a participant along with them helping win a war nobody wanted and liberating the imprisoned from their Nazi captors.

We see Garland's first use of humor during his in-processing at Ft. Devens. During his third day at Ft. Devens he was interviewed and given the opportunity to choose which arm of the army he would serve. Well, as anyone who has been in the military knows full well you really don't have a choice, they let you indicate your preference so you think you have one. Garland opted for Motorized Infantry. Riding always sounds better than walking. Instead of getting his selection his reward was the Infantry.

He soon learned that Motorized Infantry really meant tanks. Tanks did not even qualify as a really bad choice, for the survival rate of a tanker when your tank got hit was somewhere between slim and nil. At this point he said he concluded that "in exercising the one and only option of my nascent career in the military I swung from flunking pre-med at Harvard to flunking the first lesson of survival out there: never volunteer." (p. 3) I really got a laugh out of that, typical New England humor.

I learned something interesting about Bill Maudlin's cartoon characters, Willie and Joe. They were composites of Garland's compatriots in the 45th Division.

He tells us the sequence of events along the Sele-Calaore Corridor to Naples, between November 1943 and January 1944. The front moved forward and backward again and again. What caught my attention was how they lived in a cave that can only be described as decaying, rabbit-warren, feral.

When I began this review I said that I have read a number of Joe Garland's books. I wondered if Garland could meet the high standard he has set. He not only met it, he blew it away! If you want to read about the war in Italy, then read this book. If you want to read about the liberation of the French from their perspective, read this book. If you want to read about WWII through the eyes of an enlisted infantry man and his buddies, then you need to read this book. You will not be disappointed!

- Donald A. MacCuish