For the Boys

The True Account of a Combat Nurse in Patton's Third Army

De: N.C.R. Davis

Narrado por: Dara Rosenberg

A month after her 24th birthday, Lt. Mary Elizabeth Balster collapses among the rubble of a shelled supply room. On the night of November 30, 1944, holed up in the Heinrich Himmler Barracks in Morhange, France, Lt. Balster's evac receives a typical patient load, but this time one of the admissions is a 19-year-old tanker she'd nursed back to health five months before in Normandy. The charge nurse on Surgical gently informs the lieutenant that the private is critical. Rising determined to save him, Balster limps toward the shelled supply room determined to search for any blood plasma bottles still intact.

Recaptured from her mother's reminiscences and letters home, N. C. R. Davis takes listeners through every heat-of-battle harrowing moment as Balster lived it, achieving a rare glimpse of one nurse's point of view during the latter part of the European conflict.

The book mixes Lt. Balster's observations, memories, and dreams to tell the story of a richly rebellious woman trying to navigate her life while nursing wounded and dying frontline soldiers. Her strong-willed, beguiling personality fosters the grit necessary for her success as a combat nurse, but these same characteristics cause two men to fall in love with her. And the personal cost of war comes to a heartrending conclusion, as she must choose one man over the other.

©2023 NCR Davis (P)2023 Tantor

A must read

It's a beautiful but hart wrenching story about the "greatest generation". They truly believed in doing the right thing for their fellow human beings, their families and their country. But it also shows how our country let them down when they came home. Our vets never spoke to their loved ones about the horrors they witnessed. Things like that weren't talked about, it showed lack of dignity to let those kind of things affect their lives. But we all know how much it did affect them and everyone around them. As the daughter of a WWII vet, I know my father had night terrors for the rest of his life. I'm sure he wanted desperately to leave the things he saw back in the pacific where he fought, but they followed him home. It's like he fought that war for the rest of his life.

Incredible

This was one of the most beautiful stories of life, war and all that it encompasses. Truly amazing that the author was able to dig so far into her mothers history and write this tribute for her. I will keep this one on my shelf and share with anyone who will listen.

Amazing story, I enjoyed reading from beginning to end.

A purely enjoyable read!
This was a beautifully written story full of compassion, bravery, and love, based on true events.
Narrator voice is exquisite, its soulfulness, warmth and quiet melancholy.