To discover the grandfather he
never knew, Jeff Badger
began tracking down dozens of World War II veterans from the 978th
Engineer
Maintenance Company, his granddad’s unit. Through his new “war
buddies,” some
who told him stories they had never shared before, Jeff began to
reconstruct
both a life and a very personal vision of a war and the men who fought
it.
Some
stories were funny: tales of brothels, brawls, and bank
robberies. Some were painful: the death of a best friend; building a
bridge
under enemy fire; the harassment a Jewish GI endured—not from the
Germans, but
from his fellow GIs. Jeff even retraced his grandfather’s travels in Europe to track down French,
Dutch, and Germans who
remembered men in the unit.
Ultimately,
Finding Granddad's War becomes the story of Jeff Badger’s own
journey, told
through first-hand accounts, scores of original photographs, and the
friends he
makes as he traces the footsteps of the 978th
back through Germany,
Holland, and France—and trough time. In part II of the book, Jeff
provides
readers looking to fill in blanks in their own family stories a roadmap
based
on things he learned during his own 10-year voyage.