Michael C. Bilder - A Foot Soldier for Patton: the Story of a Red Diamond Infantryman with the US Third Army

Its a near impossible task even to begin to try and thank everyone who helped in this project, but I still have to try. First, my sincere thanks to my father who endured painful memories over again while telling his story, as well as my never-ending list of questions and requests for additional detail. By recounting his experiences, he and others who have recorded their accounts of World War II are preventing the Greatest Generation from becoming the Forgotten Generation.

Authors and journalists Flint Whitlock, Stephen Koepp, and Roland Gaul all provided information, insight, and encouragement. Roland, who is also Curator of the National Museum of Military History in Diekirch, Luxemburg, was especially instrumental in helping me with historical questions, as well as photos, and graciously agreed to write a foreword to this book. Stephen, my cousin and the Executive Editor at Fortune Magazine , assured me that I had a worthy manuscript and helped me to navigate the publishing world. Flint, an author whose books on World War II have been both widely read and recognized with awards, was the person who recommended Casemate Publishers.

I also need to thank the historians past and present of the Society of the 5th Division. Past Historian Joe Rahie, who served in combat with the 5th Division in World War II, and current historian Keith Short, who is a 5th Division combat veteran from the Vietnam War, made archival photographs readily available. They did so with the type of promptness worthy of first-rate soldiers.

My sister, Marianne Grisolano, helped me edit the first draft of the first several chapters, and my daughter, Joanne, a graduate of Chicagos School of the Arts Institute, helped with the graphics on the maps.

I have been fortunate to have so capable a publisher as David Farnsworth at Casemate. He and Chief Editor Steven Smith did much to facilitate this project and make the story of a truly worthy, but until now unrecognized, military unit available to the world. Hopefully, the Forgotten 5th will no longer be so easy to forget. Gayle Wurst, of Princeton International Agency for the Arts, is a person of phenomenal talent and ability whom Casemate assigned as my editor. A gem to work with, she treated the information in my manuscript with tenderness and care, as she helped put it into its final form.

Last, but by no means least, my beautiful wife Bernie (Bernadette) became a writers widow who put up with numerous weeknights and weekends alone as I combed through military histories or huddled with my father. She never stopped encouraging me, and assured me from the first day I started this project that it would be published.

To these people, my profound and eternal gratitude.