Forging the Shield by author Donald A. Carter, tells the story of U.S. Army forces in Europe during the 1950s and early 1960s. It spans the period between the return of major U.S. combat forces to Germany in 1951 and the aftermath of the Berlin crisis in 1961–1962. During that time, the troops in Europe became the public face of the Army to Americans as well as to the rest of the world. The service directed almost all of its training, equipment and force development toward that potential day when its troops would face Soviet divisions streaming through the Fulda Gap and into Germany. The establishment of a credible conventional deterrent in Germany, backed up with nuclear forces, was one of the central linchpins of the U.S. strategy of containment of Soviet power. This important volume tells the story of the U.S. Army in the early days of the Cold War as our commitment evolved into the multigenerational defense of Europe and the values of freedom.