“My War” is part autobiography and part history book. Like any true journalist, author Andy Rooney writes about what he observed and experienced—truly capturing World War II’s minutia.
The college student and aspiring writer was drafted into the U.S. Army in August 1941 and began his journalism career with Stars and Stripes the following year. His job was to witness the war and write about it. He did so with flourish, writing in such a way that he took readers to the places he saw and survived. His style, in fact, fit what 19th-century essayist and poet Henry David Thoreau called a “sense of place.”
Many of his articles’ ledes immediately allowed readers to see what he saw and hear what he heard. “From the nose of Lt. Bill Casey’s bomber, I saw American Fortresses and Liberators drop a load of destruction on Wilhelmshaven today,” was how Rooney began a Feb. 27, 1943 article.
In an article (date unknown) focusing on a few days in the life of a soldier who went from Paris onto the fighting field, Rooney begins: “Between white sheets in a hotel in Nice a Joe fell asleep and dreamed.” The article, titled “GI Enjoyed Paradise—Then He Woke Up” provides insight into just what a soldier experienced on a daily basis, from the mail he might receive to how his laundry might be cleaned.
Rooney’s articles helped soldiers’ loved ones back home feel more connected, while they also kept fighting soldiers informed.
On a Serious Note
The book is also a memorial of sorts to deceased soldiers. Rooney saw plenty of death, and he documented up close and personal accounts. The book’s somber dedication provides readers with an idea of just how dearly Rooney held the memory of those who lost their lives. It reads: “To my friends who will never read this because they died in The War: Obie Slingerland, Charley Wood, Bob Taft, Bob O’Connor, Bede Irvin, Bill Stringer, Bob Post, Jack Frankish, Tom Treanor, Peter Paris.”
“There were a thousand ways to die,” he wrote in “My War.” Reflecting on the soldiers’ bravery, he also conveyed, “Patriotism and war go together.”
In the book are historical photos of Rooney as a 20-something soldier and reporter getting on board a bomber, leaning on a pile of bombs headed for Germany, and interviewing Lt. Gen. Frank M. Andrews, who was killed 10 days afterward in April 1943. Additionally, there are accounts of what it was like to be on staff with Stars and Stripes. He worked out of offices in London and Sainte-Mere, France.
However, even though he was often in danger, Rooney still penned stories about the awe he felt: “The pride I felt being an Army newspaperman was diminished whenever I went to one of the airfields to meet the returning B-17s whose crews risked their lives.”
As the war wound down, Rooney, like many other war-time reporters, found himself covering the discovery of Jewish concentration camps. Although he later wrote about the horrors he witnessed at the camps, he shared his initial skepticism in “My War”: “Embarrassed as I am by the fact, I have to say that I was initially suspicious of all the reports of Nazi concentration camps even as we moved across France. A lot of Americans were. It seemed likely that they had been exaggerated as a way of bringing our patriotic blood to a boil.”
Although countless books have been written about war, and especially WWII, Rooney’s is a take-you-there snapshot. For Rooney, as he noted in the preface, writing “My War” was “cathartic.” He wrote, “Once you’ve put something down on paper, you can dismiss it from your mind. Having told it, I’ll be able to forget it.”
Yet, readers of “My War” won’t soon forget how Rooney, who had a 33-year career sharing distinct narratives on the television show 60 Minutes, developed his writing style during a time of extreme tumult. Some have referred to “My War” as “brash,” which indeed describes Rooney’s directness.
It’s also poignant, as is evidenced by the inclusion in his book of a poem he wrote after landing on Utah Beach—and his admission that tears flowed each time he thought of the “boys under [the crosses] who died that day.”
