KLAMATH FALLS, Ore., Nov. 18, 2004 (PRIMEZONE) -- No one can really get a grip on the reality of war unless the story is told through eyes of those who witnessed it. Robert B. Rosenthal viewed it, felt it and lived to tell about it in his new book, One Soldier's Experience (now available through AuthorHouse), edited by Lynn Rosenthal Kepple.
His book is an easy to read story told through vignettes. Rosenthal highlights only the highest and most important points as he offers a completely different perception of World War II. Older than most other recruits in the Army, he left the family business to "join up" just months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. His candid explanation for enlisting:
"I knew very little about the Army, but if there was one thing I did know, it was that I didn't want to be a 'dogface,' a mud-slogging infantry soldier," Rosenthal wrote.
One Soldier's Experience gives a glimpse at how he "got in" the Army. Through enlisting, he was able to choose the branch of the military he could best serve. He takes readers across the United States for his various trainings before he landed in the heart of combat in the South Pacific. The adventure, danger and horror of war are relived in vivid detail. He then offers a powerful account of his discharge and how the war ended for him.
A different account of war from a different kind of serviceman, One Soldier's Experience is the reality of war realized through the eyes of one brave man who was not on the front lines.
Rosenthal began writing his World War II memoirs in the late 1970s and completed it in 1984. He revised it on two occasions in the 1990s and gave copies to his children and a few select friends. After his death in 2001, his wife, Ruth, found a copy and sent it to their daughter, Lynn. She felt her father's experiences should be shared.
"(He) reminds us, perhaps for the first time, that a war is fought at many different levels," she says.