"Gene and Ed shared a "home" at the front. It was nothing more than a ditch that had been widened and covered with steel fence posts and sand bags."
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Counterfeit Peace: The Cold War by Bob Frankenstein Trafford Publishing
book review by Karyn Saemann
With painstaking effort, Frankenstein lends broad Cold War context to the stories of veterans from his hometown of Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. Recollections of Beaver Dam veterans are interspersed with Cold War history compiled from internet research and other sources. Frankenstein also supplements veterans' personal photos with public domain photos of World War II and the Korean and Vietnam wars. And he touches a bit on the experiences of local veterans who served in places like South America and Europe during the Cold War, also with photos.
The book is cleanly written and well edited, making for nice reading. The Cold War background helps if you're not sure of your history, but what most readers seek in such a book are the memories of local veterans. Frankenstein, himself a Korean War veteran, delivers on that. He includes dozens of interviews with veterans and he shares his own stories. That he got so many veterans to talk is admirable, as they can be unwilling to share. The book's best material is personal, as soldiers recall long sea voyages, mortar rounds, devastated countryside, interaction with native residents and primitive military living conditions. A large section is devoted to Korea, which makes sense as that was Frankenstein's theater. That Frankenstein is himself a veteran lends credibility. At the end he includes a long list of Beaver Dam veterans, back to the Spanish-American War. Great effort, nicely done.