American soldier Frank Moster gets involved with an Italian family and helps them survive. All of their lives will be changed during the Battle of San Pietro.

By no means, is this book a comprehensive look at all these subjects. there are short summaries of fascinating topics, which hopefully will create a spark.

James Jones (6 November, 1921 – 9 May, 1977)was an American author, mostly known for his award winning novel From Here to Eternity.

Wallace Stevens (2 October, 1879 – 2 August, 1955) was an American poet and an insurance executive.

Hitler himself knew that many are out to kill him, he was obsessed with poising to the point where his food had to be specifically grown and was kept under constant watch by men he trusted from the moment it was picked (Hitler was a vegetarian), prepared, and plated. He even had food tasters, just in case.

Daughter of the Reich by Louise Fein is a novel about the daughter of a high ranking Nazi officer who falls in love with a Jewish boy during World War II

Killing Patton: The Strange Death of World War II’s Most Audacious General takes every gossip, rumor, and, historically discredited banality about WWII as facts

Carl Sandburg (6 January, 1878 – 22 July 1967) was an American writer, editor and poet. By Al Ravenna, World Telegram staff photographer – Library of Congress. New York World-Telegram & Sun Collection. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3c15064, Public Domain, Link Sandburg’s parents emigrated from Sweden. The family’s name was originally Johnson, but due to the many Johnson’s his father met he renamed the family. At age 13 Mr. Sandburg left school to help out his poor family. At age 17 Mr. Sandburg lived as a hobo. During the Spanish-American War, Mr. Sandburg served in Puerto Rico. During his service, a student from Lombard College, which was in Mr. Sandburg’s hometown, convinced him to enroll. Professor Philip Green Wright saw talent in his Sandburg, his student, encouraged him to write and even paid to publish his volume book of poems. Mr. Sandburg never graduated, but he did receive an honorary diploma later on in life. Mr. Sandburg received three Pulitzer Prizes, two for poetry and one for the second volume of his biography of Abraham Lincoln. Carl Sandburg’s boyhood home in Galesburg is now a museum.

In 1936 Mr. Stevens broke his hand while punching the jaw of one Ernest Hemingway.

The author sets the stage early, Lt. Col. Quentin Margont, the pragmatist protagonist, sees the world in black and white, the political weasel Talleyrand who only sees shades of grey and dances political circles Napoleon’s brother, Joseph, whose ego gets in the way of him seeing reality.