Required reading for anyone interested in WWII from the common soldier's point of view. There is no sugar coating or mythologizing here as Steinbeck puts us shoulder to shoulder with the scared kids that fought the war, rather than the larger than life figures many writers try to make them out to be.

Unable to join the military because of his "communistic" reputation, John Steinbeck became a war correspondent instead. This book collects his dispatches from London, Africa and Italy. The result is a poignant, sometimes humorous, view of military life during wartime. There isn't a lot of action but Steinbeck's portraits of servicemen, usually in transit, still makes for an engaging read. I'm only sorry that there wasn't more as the book ends rather abruptly. An afterword from the author would have been a nice wrap-up, but it is what it is.

A collection of columns Steinbeck wrote from various places where he was “embedded” (as we call it now) with the troops during World War II. Written on a more personal level and with a different style than many columnists of the day who focused on individuals, Steinbeck’s book describes settings to make the reader feel like they are there. This makes the book unique, because there aren’t many dramatic stories, and it’s more about the day-to-day existence where sudden death can come at a moment’s notice to break up the mundane monotony.

I don’t want to give too much away – each of the stories is unique, and they range from a tragedy with a movie theater being bombed to the hilarious “Commander William Goat” to ghost stories and “miracles”, along with plenty of different types of units where Steinbeck describes the day-to-day life of the ordinary serviceman (or servicewoman in a few cases) – but each one is a glimpse into what was happening in the corner of the war he found himself in on that particular day in the war (beginning in 1943).