User:Michlos~enwiki/sandbox

Finding Granddad’s War is the 2008 non-fiction book by American author Jeffrey Badger. It is the story of the author’s search for his deceased grandfather’s story in his WWII Army Engineer unit. It includes candid interviews from veterans and European civilians who befriended them in 1944/1945. The book’s foreword is written by historian Flint Whitlock. In Part II of the book the author gives instruction on finding military-related records and information on the Internet.

Synopsis
The book explores several topics, some uncommon in popular histories, namely:
 * Army Engineering: The role and actions of an engineering maintenance company in WWII.
 * Looting: A favorite subject of the GIs being interviewed, includes the robbing of two banks in Germany.
 * Anti-Semitism in the US Army: Several veterans discussed the anti-Semitism within the US Army. On veteran said the hardest part of the war for him was not the war itself, but the relentless anti-Semitic harassment he received from his fellow American GIs. The author interviewed one of the Jewish GI’s antagonists, who remembered the Jewish GI as “a good buddy”.
 * Memory: The book explores how veterans remember the same events very differently 50 years later.
 * Romanticization: The book explores the romanticization of WWII and the Greatest Generation and also how the veterans feel about this designation.
 * Traumatic memories: Most veterans interviewed had never discussed the war. Many decided to finally discuss and found it cathartic, finally making peace with the war in their old age. Others didn’t.
 * Engineering unit: The book discusses the work of an engineering maintenance company.
 * River Crossing: The unit built pontoon bridges across the Roer River at Jülich, Germany under German fire. Lengthy discussion and interviews of what constitutes a river crossing by Army Engineers.
 * European civilians’ recollections: The author interviewed French, Dutch and German civilians who befriended the veterans in 1944/1945.