Battle of the Bulge (Update)

Amazingly, since I mentioned it yesterday, CNN today has a story up about Lyle Bouck, the father of a boyhood baseball teammate. He sounds like a very nice man, and typical of that "greatest generation" in that he didn't trumpet his own heroism, but just came home and went back to working and living and raising a family. What's wonderful about America is how average men do extraordinary things when called upon by their country.

It is also interesting to note how a writer can capture and frame an event through the story of one man that then becomes emblematic of that event for all time. Michael Shaara's great The Killer Angels made Joshua Chamberlain the face of Gettysburg; Stephen Ambrose's Band of Brothers has made Dick Winters the face of D-Day; now Mr. Bouck appears to be becoming the face of the Bulge through Alex Kershaw's new book.