Brave Men

At the time, America was not involved in World War II, but when the United States entered the fighting, Ernie Pyle went along. Through his columns from the front lines, Pyle gave American civilians an honest look at what war was like for the soldiers on their behalf. He personally witnessed combat and described it with clarity and sympathy that gave the public back home an immediate sense of what life was really like for the foot soldiers. Nobel Prize—winning author John Steinbeck noted that there were “two wars,” one of strategy and operational logistics, campaigns, ballistics and divisions and regiments, and another war that encompassed all of the petty details, small joys and tragedies of everyday life experienced by common men.