Howard Dallin

On Christmas Day, 1944 five young soldiers of the 17th Airborne Division entered the frozen hell of the Battle of the Bulge. This is not the story of generals or strategies. It is the story of ordinary men who faced extraordinary terror fear, loss, and the fight to stay human in the chaos of war. Through their own words, these veterans recount the cold, the killing, and the haunting memories that never left them. Their courage and trauma reveal not just the brutality of war, but the strength of the human soul when survival is the only instinct left. A deeply emotional and unflinching look at the last great battle of World War II — and the men who lived to tell its truth.

The men of Company K, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment describe the ferocious battle for the Island of Peleliu, "an island on fire." In conditions that tested the sanity of each man, 9,000 Marines attacked 10,000 battle hardened Japanese soldiers dug into hundred of fortified and reinforced coral and limestone caves. Twenty-eight days of unrelenting battle with no quarter being given or taken. Brutal, harrowing, but heart-rending, the stories of these soldiers truly speak to the horror of war.