Soldier Boy: At Play in the ASA

In 1962 when Tim Bazzett graduated from high school he'd had enough of academia and classroom drudgery, so he joined the army - and received an education he'd never imagined. Perhaps one of the most unlikely and inept citizen-soldiers since Gomer Pyle, Tim somehow survives the terrors and tribulations of basic training at "Fort Lost-in-the-Woods, Misery," and after further training in the mysteries of Morse code in Massachusetts and Maryland, the small-town innocent is launched overseas and into the larger world. In northern Turkey he finds himself a link in the outermost defenses of America during a Cold War he only imperfectly understands. There he sees poverty and hatred in the faces of children and is forced to confront his own faults and inner demons. Later on in Germany, no longer quite so innocent, he chases girls and dreams of being a rock star. But at the heart of Bazzett's narrative are the characters - the friends he makes along the way. For this is ultimately a book about friendship - and about growing up. In his first volume of memoirs, Bazzett made his Michigan hometown in the fifties come alive for all his readers. In Soldier Boy, his military experiences are made just as real. Get ready to laugh, and maybe cry a little too, as the irrepressible Reed City Boy rides again.

"Written with honesty and intelligence and humor, Soldier Boy is a book full of fantastic details and spot-on memories ... The introduction by the author's mother is priceless, and the pictures add a special resonance to a special book ... [Bazzett] has done a tremendous job!"
Stella Suberman
author of the WWII memoir, When It Was Our War: A Soldier's Wife on the Home Front

"I greatly enjoyed Soldier Boy! Speaking as one of only a few Brits who served alongside ASA in Europe, it was especially evocative. There are few from here who remember eating and enjoying SOS, and fewer still who will admit to sampling the dangerous delights of Hamburg ... I look forward to [Bazzett's] next."
Geoffrey Elliott
OBE, author of From Siberia with Love and co-author of the JSSL history, Secret Classrooms

"The pictures are all too familiar - old German barracks, gasthauses, [and] quite a graphic description of beer processing at The Deuce ... I see why people buy it ...[Soldier Boy] passes muster!"
Col Wolfgang W.E. Samuel
USAF (ret.), author of the acclaimed memoir, German Boy, and I Always Wanted to Fly

"Bazzett's story is anything but dry military history ..  He recreates the experience of army life essentially through the eyes of the boy he was in the 60s ... But this is far more than just a story about the US Army ... [It's] simply a helluva good story!"
Harry Shukman
Emeritus Fellow, St. Antony's College, Oxford, author of War or Revolution and co-author of Secret Classrooms

"It's really intriguing to get another perspective on what we all did as Cold Warriors, long, long ago ... I very much enjoyed Soldier Boy."
Leslie Woodhead
OBE, award-winning documentary film maker and author of the memoir, My Life as a Spy