Almost everything about American society is affected by World War II: our feelings about race; our feelings about gender and the empowerment of women, moving women into the workplace; our feelings about our role in the world. All of that comes in a very direct way out of World War II.

The people who write official histories for the Army believe that a generation needs to pass before you can tackle the official history. It's useful to have some distance. Sources become available. Passions cool. It allows an opportunity to make some real assessments and judgments about personalities and characters.

The American army between world wars after World War I had virtually disintegrated. It was a very small force, given largely to practicing cavalry charges on western outposts.

I'm going to leave WWII. I considered and rejected doing something on the Pacific. Fourteen years is enough. I'd like to take on a different challenge and probably a different era. But it will be another war. It's what I do.

There is something within our biological structure that screams out and says it is morally wrong for the old to outlive the young. This is one of the times when God doesn’t seem to make sense. This is the worst that life gets.

I was born in Munich, and my father was stationed in Salzburg. For the first three years of my life, I lived in Austria back when the American Army was still in Austria. I grew up subsequently in posts around the country around veterans.

If Ive vividly laid out the narrative, the reader will come to his own conclusions.