Kershaw ably depicts the terror and struggle of the Second World War through the eyes of Felix Sparks, an officer with the 45th Division (The Thunderbirds) composed of men from the southwest. A poor boy from a depression mining town in Arizona, Sparks enlisted in the 30s, thrived in the army, and then was recalled as an officer for the war.

To paraphrase Sparks, getting promoted in the infantry is easy, all you need to do is survive. Now, surviving is the hard part. The 45th landed at Sicily, Salerno, the meatgrinder of Anzio where Sparks' company was ruthlessly destroyed in the Battle of the Caverns. They were reconstituted, and sent through the forgotten campaigns of the war-the invasion of the South of France, and another brutal mini-Battle of the Bulge in the Vosges Mountain, where his regiment was surrounded and destroyed by the SS. Rebuilt again, Sparks fought through Germany to liberate the Dachau concentration camp, where he personally intervened to prevent a massacre of SS prisoners. Sparks' principles got him in trouble with his commanders. He survived, had a distinguished career as a lawyer in Colorado, and spent his final years fighting gun violence.

I have some quibbles, like why would any World War 2 writer try to excuse even normal military operations of the Waffen-SS by the phrase 'they were just following orders', but this is an a great biography that reveals some corners of the war you won't see on the History Channel.