Past Times.

Well I assume that I am to continue writing on this piece that I chose so I will go into a little more detail of how I came to read this for the first time.
During my time in Middle School I became an avid enthusiast for anything related to WWII. My interest being sparked by my Middle School history teacher, Mr. Corkett, who introduced me to war-gaming, a model based reenactment of historical and even fictitious battles. Corkett was a WWII historian who studied extensively on the event. He had been involved in the war-gaming of WWII for over 20 years, and with his teaching also formed a War-game club where students could join to play these reenactments and learn about the war in one form or another. Now to most this was a game, but I gained a very strong interest in the actual history of WWII and spent much of my time studying what I consider the most fascinating time in human history. The book I received as Christmas gift from my parents about two years after I started in the club. At first I skimmed over various parts just for kicks thinking that is was just another boring interpretation of the war. But looking more and more into Sajer’s autobiography I found myself reading not just for the story but also for the historical facts that were hidden within the text. I found that the knowledge I had acquired in my years of studying was being put in context in an actual story that someone had lived. I found myself seeing the war differently than I had before, not as an array of tactical/strategic maneuvers being implemented in a timeline across the European map, but instead as the brutal, destructive thing that war is.