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The myth of the United States serviceman in Western Europe during World War II is that they fought for mom, Chevrolet and apple pie. They fought bravely, defeated the Nazis, were greeted as liberators, returned to a grateful nation, married their high school sweetheart, got a job with their father-in-law’s corporation, and began the next fight against the Soviets.

Robert Humphrey, a communication studies professor at Sacramento State, does his part to dispel the sanitized version of fighting in Europe with a new book, “Once Upon a Time in War: The 99th Division in World War II.”

Humphrey doesn’t take the route of the typical military history book, concentrating on strategy or tactics. He ignored the strategists, generals and politicians and interviewed the men, encouraging them to talk about their fears and hardships.

Over a 10-year period, he talked to the infantry, the GIs, the grunts, who served on the front line for the Army’s 99th Infantry Division. After spending time and resources to talk to these men, he chronicles their truth about what it was like to serve in Western Europe toward the end of World War II, concentrating strictly on their point-of-view.

These men, put into the front line along the border of Belgium and Germany just prior to the bitter winter in 1944, put up with hardships rarely displayed in film or book.

The 99ers came to Europe after D-Day, after the liberation of France and Belgium. They were led to believe the war in Europe was over, and many were glad to be in Europe for mop-up operations rather than the Pacific, where the war was still going strong. Humphrey writes, “They were told, however, theirs was a quiet, static sector and nothing would happen, if at all, until spring.”

Humphrey took the time to develop trusts with men reluctant to get into the harshness of war. As the veterans aged – they are men now in there 80s and 90s – interview opportunities with these men were lessening.

The stories are spellbinding. Even prior to the Battle of the Bulge, the GIs tell stories of the bitter winter of 1944.

Humphrey wrote about infantryman Joe Thimm: “[he] stared at his future home, a muddy hole with a makeshift roof of shelter halves, a bleak, snow-covered field to the front, and, to the rear, another field strewn with dead bloated cattle, ‘a heck of an introduction to frontline combat.'”

Perhaps the more romantic view of service had more basis in truth at the beginning of U.S. involvement, but by the time the 99ers arrived in Europe in was clear the U.S. wasn’t under any threat from Germany. The idea of saving Europe was even quickly dispelled, “As 99ers made their way through the rubble, French dockworkers cursed them.”

Humphrey chronicles the 99ers fighting not for patriotism or to protect their loved ones, but being driven by fear. He wrote about a soldier caught in the open as the first barrage of the Battle of the Bulge started:

[He] dove into a slit trench and tried to become as small and flat as possible. The noise and concussive force of exploding shells made him feel as though he had put his head ‘inside an enourmous bell while giants pounded it with sledgehammers.’ His youthful sense of invulnerability disappeared, and he was filled with terror.

Even more than mortal fear for the infantry was the fear of failure before your fellow soldiers. One soldier admitted, “We wanted to show up well, to appear fearless while inside we were scared to death. As a soldier you do not wish to let your buddy down.”

U.S. soldiers, having grown up with heroes like Cooper, Stewart, Cagney, and Bogart, assumed the expectations for a man was to get along, not rock the boat, and get the job done despite forces aligned against them.

The 99ers put up with bitter cold, inadequate equipment, terrible or non-existent food, dysentery, and officers and support at the rear that didn’t understand or care about the men at the front. Their overriding concern was to support their mate sharing their foxhole and their fellow battalion members putting up with exactly the same hardships.

Humphrey summed up their contribution at the end of the book: “Years later, looking back on this period in their lives, they realized they had been connected in some small way to something much larger.”

The 99ers only served a few months prior to the end of the war on the Western Front, but those few months would stay with them forever. We are lucky Humphrey was able to get them to tell their stories now, before the stories go with them.

Daniel King can be reached at [email protected].