Binding Up the Wounds - An American Soldier in Occupied Germany, 1945-1946 (Hardcover, New)

Slices of life in the American occupation army in post - WW II Germany as seen through the eyes of an impressionable young combat infantryman, matched with his mature observations of a rebuilt Germany 50 years later. Standifer, who chronicled his combat experiences in Not in Vain: A Rifleman Remembers World War II (not reviewed), served in the 94th Infantry Division in Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Bavaria after V-E Day. Germany was without food reserves or money, and its cities were in ruins. Millions of its men were in POW camps. Civilians survived by trading their possessions, services, and souvenirs with GIs (who ignored nonfraternization regulations) for coffee, cigarettes, and army rations. Standifer's narrative has many absorbing and vivid episodes, including some revealing exchanges with German POWs and a droll account of the Allied victory parade in Prague (General Patton allowed only combat veterans who had been rigorously drilled to take part, intending to best the marching skills of other Allied troops). The author, born in Mississippi, writes frankly about his growing rapport with the men in a black GI unit (at a time when the army was still segregated), and with equal frankness about his experiences with German women. An older Standifer (professor emeritus of horticulture at Louisiana State Univ.) ponders the loss of youth when he and his buddies left for the army as adolescents and returned from the war as "old men," and the nature of the shared misery at the heart of war. He admits that, despite his grim surroundings, he enjoyed his service in the occupation forces. In general, he notes, he lived better as a soldier than he had in Depression-ravaged Mississippi, giving new life to the the old army bromide "He found a home in the army." A deeply felt remembrance, recorded in an honest, unadorned manner. (Kirkus Reviews)

In his highly acclaimed Not in Vain, Leon C. Standifer recounted his experiences as a small-town Mississippi boy who at age nineteen found himself fighting as a combat infantryman in World War II France and Germany. Binding Up the Wounds carries the story beyond V-E Day to describe what the author saw, heard, felt, and learned as a member of the American occupation army in the homeland of its defeated enemy. Standifer, who served in the 94th Infantry Division in western Germany, the Sudetenland, and Bavaria in the first year of occupation, chronicles that unique and chaotic time from the viewpoint of a typical GI. Germany was an epic landscape of human need, and cities lay in ruins. But the war was over, light and laughter were once again possible, and, as Standifer recalls, ""we had a ball during that first year."" Among the things he experienced or witnessed were black-market operations large and small (American cigarettes served as a universal currency, and a few ounces of mess-hall grease or used coffee grounds were valuable commodities); the spectacle of gung-ho officers attempting to turn combat troops into spit-and-polish paraders; the exploitative games played between American soldiers and German women; a gut-wrenching visit to a displaced persons camp; and the difficulties involved in guarding captured soldiers who were no longer the enemy. Perhaps most revealing, and often surprising, are the attitudes Standifer discovered among ordinary Germans toward the war, the Nazis, the ""Hitler times"" in general, not only during the occupation, but also decades later when he revisited Germany and spoke with elderly survivors of those times. For there are really two voices telling the tale of Binding Up the Wounds. One is that of the combat-hardened but otherwise naive twenty-year-old who lived the experiences. The other is that of the author as retired college professor looking back over half a century and puzzling out what those experiences meant for himself, for America, and for human-kind.

General

Imprint:	Louisiana State University Press
Country of origin:	United States
Release date:	February 1997
First published:	February 1997
Authors:	Leon C. Standifer
Dimensions:	229 x 152 x 22mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Hardcover
Pages:	272
Edition:	New
ISBN-13:	978-0-8071-2094-1
Categories:	Books > Humanities > History > General Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > General Books > History > General
LSN:	0-8071-2094-4
Barcode:	9780807120941

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