In search of "the best America there ever was," bestselling author and
award-winning journalist Bob Greene finds it in a small Nebraska town
few people pass through today--a town where Greene discovers the echoes
of the most touching love story imaginable: a love story between a
country and its sons.
During World War II, American soldiers from every city and walk of life
rolled through North Platte, Nebraska, on troop trains en route to their
ultimate destinations in Europe and the Pacific. The tiny town, wanting
to offer the servicemen warmth and support, transformed its modest
railroad depot into the North Platte Canteen.
Every day of the year, every day of the war, the Canteen--staffed and
funded entirely by local volunteers--was open from five a.m. until the
last troop train of the day pulled away after midnight. Astonishingly,
this remote plains community of only 12,000 people provided welcoming
words, friendship, and baskets of food and treats to more than six
million GIs by the time the war ended.
In this poignant and heartwarming eyewitness history, based on
interviews with North Platte residents and the soldiers who once passed
through, Bob Greene tells a classic, lost-in-the-mists-of-time American
story of a grateful country honoring its brave and dedicated sons.
