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Book Review On Another River Another Town

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Another River, Another Town Book Review Another River, Another Town, by John P. Irwin, is a book about a teenage tank gunner in the end years of World War II. He learns to grow up real quick during his first experience with war. He went in wanting to be a hero, he left happy to be alive. From the book’s beginning, Irwin reveals himself to be self-deprecating, honest and quite detailed in his recollection of his service. His book describes the relations among the five-man crew, the agony of having a tank shot out from underneath them, and the daily drudgery in going from town to town, river to river, bridge to bridge. With the Battle of the Bulge, December 1944, there was a great demand on the United States Army for replacements in the European Theater of Operations. Irwin finished his initial training in Fort Knox and then was shipped off to France. He was immediately put in charge as a ranking soldier. Irwin was instructed to join the 3rd Armored Division, but his crew gets lost and end up in a German occupied town. Luckily for them, the Germans wanted to surrender. In addition to the killing and destruction on the battlefield, Irwin and his …show more content…

Another River, Another Town is presented as a scary adventure on a grand scale. There is an element of sadness knowing that Irwin was but one of many who were forced to grow up under such dire circumstances; he survived the experience, but a good many did not. The message that the author was trying to show is, what it is like to be a 17 year old thrown into combat. The author states there is confusion, fear, horror, shock, disgust of war, but those emotions are simply stated rather than putting you in the mind of these citizen-soldiers. The focus of the author was to describe how it was as a teenager being told to kill in order to survive, and I think he did a good job trying to get his point

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