Reading this book was a revelation. The descriptions of what it was like to lay in a shallow depression, hastily dug from frozen ground, while artillery tree-bursts flailed everything with white-hot shrapnel, were terrifying. Trying to picture myself in a foxhole with a Tiger tank boring in, as described by the author, made me wonder whether I could have dealt with the reality that was experienced by the American participants in the "Battle of the Bulge".

I've read several other books on the Battle of the Bulge that focused more on the strategic aspects of the battle, but this book, by far, helped me to better understand the gritty, frozen, deadly, reality faced by the heroic American soldiers. And let there be no doubt, they were heroes. I can only wonder: could todays generation exhibit this kind of singleminded devotion to turning back an inexorable tide under similar circumstances?