The war had been waging since 1938, and now, as the winter of 1941 crept toward its end and Christmas Day approached, Erich found himself once more far from home, in a jungle that felt more like another planet than any corner of the German Reich.
Three years… Three years without his wife, without his children, without the warmth of his mother's embrace or the dry wit of his father.
Three years since he last heard his grandmother's voice, a woman who had practically raised him.
He had seen his grandfather only once, and even that had been a meeting of duty, not affection.
Long ago, when he was but a youth, he had dismissed the man's warning, that the soldier's road was long, brutal, and unforgiving. Back then, he had thought himself too stubborn to be broken.
