"Carol Bell tells a compelling story of the role of Private 37483425 in America's push to end the Nazi advance in Europe during WWII. Now ninety-two, Bill Behrens remembers fondly his weeks in a private house in Wales before deployment, then the grime of an Army camp in Normandy and his work as a stevedore on the docks of Antwerp, Belgium. After two years and a world war won, he heads stateside, wondering if he will be able to settle back into civilian life and the marriage and young son he left behind. Bell is able to capture the raw emotion of soldier 37483425, more so because that soldier is her father.
Claire McDougall, Author of Veil of Time (available in March 2014)
"From the fi rst moment that Bill Behrens sits down and starts to tell his story about what it was like for a young farm boy from Nebraska to spend two years in the horrific war zones in France and Belgium during the last stretch of World War II you will be there yourself, living every moment in fear of stepping on land mines on the beach at Normandy or being blown up by German air strikes. Read about this quiet, take-charge soldier's daily experiences, brought up from a buried place after 67 years. You will become a little part of that experience."
Cynthia Magriel Wetzler, Contributing Features Writer to The New York Times.