Citizen Soldiers Essay

In the book Citizen Soldiers by Stephen E. Ambrose, the title explains mainly what the book is about. The title itself gives you the insight about how the war was fought through the perspective of a regular citizen fighting in the biggest war in history. During the war there were many casualties, as a result more regular citizens were being drafted to go right into battle. In this book Ambrose exemplifies the fact that there were many regular citizens in the war and that they took the situation that they were in and made better of it and overcame it to come home as heroes.
The men of the story were ordinary citizens put into an extraordinary situation and came out on top. These men often bonded together through some of the harder times, for example in the text there was a time where one soldier was able to be sent home to the states but refused it because he wanted to stay with his friend. "It's either I stay here or he comes too," those were the feelings of many people in the war that shared a special attachment with another man. The book was able to clarify many of my questions left over from Band Of Brothers, like how the men of the companies got along with the newer recruits and how they shared their feelings for them. I soon realized that the citizen soldiers of this book had their really close friends but they really didn't see the new people as intruding on their war lifestyle and being too anxious to fight. They didn't react to cruelly towards the new men because they were once in that same position and knew what it was like to have been unpopular among the others of the company who had been together for a longer period of time. The soldiers in the book also had many knew chances to bond together during the war while still concentrating of fighting. "I never observed any loners on the front line…The men automatically paired up. The buddy system worked very well; it provided additional security…it provided additional warmth….We were a team,