This autobiography tells the story of how a U.S. cavalryman witnessed the fall of an old world and endured the birth of a new one. From mounted drills at Fort Riley to the jungles of Los Negros and Leyte, his journey spanned the U.S. Army's transition from mounted to mechanized warfare and the shift from youthful pride to lifelong trauma. The memoirs of a soldier in the 5th U.S. Cavalry Regiment take the reader from pre-war frontier patrols to desperate battles in the Pacific: the rescue of 3,700 internees, including nurses, in Santo Tomas; the brutal house-to-house fighting in Manila; and the daily struggle for survival in the tropics. Public records are juxtaposed with personal testimoniesflamethrowers clearing buildings; a wounded Japanese soldier detonating a grenade, killing himself and his American rescuer; And the bitter realization: "The more we fought against them, the more we became like them." Among the millions of soldiers who served, only a few began their careers in the cavalry, and even fewer bore the burden of war for so long. These memoirs trace the fate of one such soldier and describe how duty, violence, and loss cast a shadow that haunted him for 65 years.
