Ny good friend M1! I KNEW you'd be able to relate to my book receipt excitement. When the UPS guy arrived, he probably thought I'd lost my mind because I kept saying: "YAY!!! It's the book!!" and thanking him profusely.
I LOVE detail - especially the specific detail of real people's stories and experiences. This book has alot of that in spades - compiled from many sources including the regimental historians of the 104TH and 181st. Some of the stories are a riot.
Apparently, when the "selectees" arrived on the train to Camp Edwards, they had to walk about a mile to their billets in mud up to their ankles. The area they saw was a bleak wilderness with no trees & there was ice & snow with the wind whipping across the camp flatlands.
A 104th historian wrote: "We left the train and carried our heavy packs the mile to the new barracks through much snow. So this was to be our home: what a desolate place....seemingly a dreary, forlorn, out of the way place."
There was a guy named Bill McCarter who arrived at Edwards after his basic training in Mississippi just after Pearl Harbor, he boarded an Army train "with covered windows and traveled for 2 1/2 days not knowing where he was going." When the train arrived, 6 inches of snow covered the ground & he asked the conductor where he was & was told:"Iceland".
the conductor was clearly a comedian.