|
|
 |
|
|
|
MILITARY
BOOKS
|
|
|
Philip Herzig
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sergeant
Philip Herzig, United States Army, is a “World War II veteran and entrepreneur, was born on New Year’s Eve in
1924 and grew up in Great Neck, Long Island. His studies at Princeton University were interrupted during his sophomore year
when he was drafted into the 405th Infantry Regiment and was sent to Europe. He received a Purple Heart and a Combat Infantry
Badge for participation in the European campaigns. After his discharge, Herzig returned home to graduate from Princeton with
honors. Upon graduation, he married Helene Phillips, his roommate’s sister, and settled down to start a finance firm
and to publish a newsletter called “Gold Dustings.” The father of two daughters and a son, he enjoyed 54 years
of marriage with his wife, Helene. Herzig passed away at 79 in 2004.” Phillip Herzig is the author
of YOUR LOVING SON, Philip: Letters From an American Soldier in World War II May 1944-June 1946.
|
|
|
According
to the book description of YOUR LOVING SON, Philip: Letters From an American Soldier in World War II May 1944-June
1946, “With vivid detail Your Loving Son, Philip takes us back to the lives of the GIs in Germany at the
end of World War II. Philip Herzig, a 19-year-old studying at Princeton University, was drafted in 1944. For the next two
years he wrote home every other day, describing his life, first in boot camp, then in Germany, first in battle duty and then
in the army of occupation. Philip describes everything from the guns issued during boot camp to the desolate surroundings
of bombed out Germany. He even spends a day at the Nuremburg Trials. His mature observations about the German personality,
about the GIs fraternizing with German frauleins-the enemy-and politics in the US are all fascinating and honest. At the same
time, this boy misses his family greatly and doesn't hesitate to fantasize about their trips in the family car, the cookouts
and his parents' loving personalities. After showing his sister Pat's photo around to his friends in his company, he warns
her that she may be getting a lot of phone calls when the war is over.
|
|
|
|
The
book includes photos of Phil and his buddies as they travel around Germany and their posturing in the mountaintop ruins of
Hitler's headquarters in Berchtesgaden. He describes his surroundings -from the Riviera when he's on deserved leave after
action that led to a Purple Heart to the house of a family that hosted him in Holland to the shower the company gets to take
in a deserted monastery. As Pulitzer Prize-winning author Joseph J. Ellis says in his Preface: "Your Loving Son, Philip
is a major memoir from the World War II generation, distinctive for its literacy, its palpable recovery of the ordinary routines
amidst those extraordinary times, the distinctive voice of a coming-of-age American man-child who has been hurled into the
greatest military venture of the twentieth century...Philip is always disarmingly honest, never poses, never embellishes for
effect. This is the genuine article."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
