“Home Front to Battlefront” is the story of the U.S. campaign in Europe during World War II, told through the story of Carl Lavin who served as a combat infantryman. Carl was a high school senior when Pearl Harbor was attacked. The Ohio native enlisted when he turned 18, a decision that would take him with the U.S. Army in training assignments in the U.S. and Britain to combat from the Battle of the Bulge through V-E Day. “Home Front to Battlefront” is the tale of a foot soldier who finds himself thrust into a world where he and his unit grapple with the horrors of combat, the idiocies of bureaucracy, and the oddities of life back home – all in the same day.
This book contributes the rich experience of one soldier’s journey to the broader literature of World War II. Lavin’s adventures, in turn disarming and sobering, will appeal to general readers, veterans, and students of history. As a history, the book offers insight into the evolution of peacetime America into a combatant nation and how individuals and families dealt with that requirement. As a biography, the book reflects the emotions and the journey of the individual in a war effort that is all too often thought of as a machine war in which human soldiers were merely interchangeable cogs.
Carl Lavin was the father of former U.S. Ambassador to Singapore Frank Lavin. The book is based on Carl’s personal letters, his recollections, and those with whom he served, official military history, private papers, published histories, and more. More information at www.HF2BF.com