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Home Front to Battlefront
WAR AND SOCIETY IN NORTH AMERICA
Series Editors: Ingo Trauschweizer and David J. Ulbrich
Editorial Board
Janet Bednarek
Michael W. Doyle
Nicole Etcheson
Joseph Fitzharris
John Grenier
John Hall
Paul Herbert
James Westheider
Lee Windsor
Hero of the Angry Sky: The World War I Diary and Letters of David S. Ingalls, America’s First Naval Ace, edited by Geoffrey L. Rossano
Protecting the Empire’s Frontier: Officers of the 18th (Royal Irish) Regiment of Foot during Its North American Service, 1767–1776, by Steven M. Baule
Citizen-General: Jacob Dolson Cox and the Civil War Era, by Eugene D. Schmiel
Veteran Narratives and the Collective Memory of the Vietnam War, by John A. Wood
Home Front to Battlefront: An Ohio Teenager in World War II, by Frank Lavin
HOME FRONT TO BATTLEFRONT
An Ohio Teenager in World War II
Frank Lavin
Foreword by Dr. Henry A. Kissinger
OHIO UNIVERSITY PRESS
ATHENS
Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio 45701
© 2016 by Ohio University Press
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“The Offering,” by Samuel Menashe, copyright © 1971, 1973, 1986, 2004, 2005 by Samuel Menashe. Reprinted by permission of the Literary Classics of the United States, Inc., New York, NY. All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Lavin, Franklin L., author.
Title: Home front to battlefront: an Ohio teenager in World War II / Frank Lavin; foreword by Dr. Henry A. Kissinger.
Other titles: Ohio teenager in World War II
Description: Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, [2016] | Series: War and society in North America | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016040527| ISBN 9780821422557 (hc: alk. paper) | ISBN 9780821445921 (pdf)
Subjects: LCSH: Lavin, Carl, 1924–2014. | United States. Army. Infantry Division, 84th—Biography. | Soldiers—United States—Correspondence. | Jewish soldiers—United States—Correspondence. | World War, 1939–1945—Campaigns—Germany. | World War, 1939–1945—Personal narratives, American. | United States. Army—Military life—Anecdotes. | Germany—Social conditions—20th century—Anecdotes. | Teenagers—Ohio—Biography. | Canton (Ohio)—Biography.
Classification: LCC D769.3 84th L47 2016 | DDC 940.541273092 [B]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016040527
To the men of Company L:
We are here today because they were there yesterday.
Contents
1. From Canton to Miami and Enlistment