This is a fairly comprehensive book - replete with photos and personal accounts - of the history of African Americans in the U.S. military spanning from the War of Independence to Vietnam. The author also looks into the efforts made by the military in the post-Vietnam era to expand opportunities for advancement in the military for African Americans.

I recommend "THE RIGHT TO FIGHT: A History of African Americans in the Military" to any reader keen to know and better understand an aspect of U.S. history too often overlooked or marginalized.

This book - Volume III of "The Greatest War" trilogy chronicling the American combat experience in the Second World War - should be read and cherished by any reader who (like myself) has/had a parent or relative who served in the U.S. military during the war. What is more: any reader with an interest in military history or in understanding the stresses placed upon the psyche of combatants in war should read this book.

Many times in reading the eyewitness accounts by the veterans who fought in Europe in the immediate aftermath of Operation Cobra (i.e. the breakout at Saint-Lô in Normandy, where my father's unit played its part in July 1944), Operation Market Garden, the Battle of the Bulge and the subsequent battles across the Rhine River leading up to V-E Day on May 8, 1945 ---- as well as the submarine war waged by the U.S. Navy in the Pacific, the air wars against both the Germans and Japanese in the latter part of 1944 and 1945, and the battles of Saipan, Tinian, Guam, Peleliu, Iwo Jima, the Philippines and Okinawa culminating in the decisions to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki ---- I was both sobered and overawed by the sacrifices made by the combat veterans. One example I'd like to cite is the following remarks made by the actor Tom Poston, who remembered waiting impatiently for an opportunity to aid the Americans trapped in Bastogne during the height of the Battle of the Bulge:

"It was socked in. You couldn't fly, couldn't take off because of the weather. You couldn't see. Every day we'd go down to the radio room, getting ready to go, because we knew the guys were desperate. Finally, around Christmas, they said, 'Okay, it looks like it's going to open up.' We flew in weather all the way, got to the drop zone and pop! it was clear. We went down and dropped the parabundles. The sounds of a plane's engines are pretty loud, and there were a bunch of us, so it was pretty noisy. But the guys came out of the woods where they had been hiding and fighting and you could hear them cheer. That's how loud they were yelling. It was gratifying as hell. It suddenly seemed it was worth doing, accomplishing something." (Poston had served in Europe as a pilot in the U.S. Army Air Force's (USAAF) Troop Carrier Command, bringing the paratroopers into Normandy and Holland.)

With the ranks of Second World War veterans growing now ever thinner with each passing year, reading books like this one should give readers pause and a greater appreciation for their service.

This book - Volume II in a trilogy of eyewitness accounts of the American combat experience in the Second World War - is replete with eyewitness accounts of soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen who fought in Sicily, Italy, the campaigns in the Southwest and Central Pacific during 1943-44, the China-Burma-India Theater, the air war over Festung Europa and the Pacific, Operation Overlord, the Battle of Normandy, and in the invasion of Southern France in August 1944. Gerald Astor, himself a Second World War veteran (U.S. Army) has done a fine job of letting the veterans speak for themselves.

Anyone who reads "THE GREATEST WAR: D-Day and the Assault on Europe" cannot help but be deeply moved by these unflinchingly honest accounts and thankful for the sacrifices the Second World War generation made to secure a better world for us all, irrespective of creed, color, sexual orientation, national origin, gender, political or religious affiliation.

Gerald Astor was one of the country's best military historians. This particular book, replete with the oral histories of several veterans who had served in the earliest campaigns waged by the U.S. in the Second World War, brings alive the sense of shock, despair, defeat, and hope that typified those challenging times. It was very sobering to read the eyewitness accounts of the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and one Army nurse who took part in the Battle of the Philippines, which resulted in one of the most grievous defeats in U.S. military history. There are also accounts of the first efforts made by the U.S. Army Air Force (USAAF) in the air war over Europe against Germany, and the Battles of the Java Sea, Coral Sea, Midway, Port Moresby (New Guinea), and Guadalcanal. 

The book ends with accounts of Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of North Africa (November 1942), where U.S. forces fought the Germans for the first time in ground combat. Indeed, the U.S. went through considerable growing pains there, learning from its mistakes, as it began the slow process of building an efficient and effective fighting force. This is a book which will give the reader a deep appreciation for the sacrifices those veterans made on our behalf 70 years ago. Their stories bring an immediacy to the history that makes it vividly alive once more.