Summary of Raymond Gantter's Roll Me Over

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 I was assigned to serve as an assistant to the orientation officer of my shipment. The officer did not believe in books or theories that did not include a solid, unequivocal QED. He thought the entire Orientation Program was nonsense.

#2 We were in England for only five or six days, and yet the army apparently believed that anti-British sentiment had swept through our group. I was baffled by the accusation of prejudice. I’d heard a few wisecracks, a few sour comments, but I dismissed them as the escape-valve griping of men who were frightened and homesick.

#3 The prejudice I heard from the army was often provoking and sometimes silly, but I maintained that the men had every right to speak their piece. If they believed what they were saying, no officer had the right to tell them that certain things they were saying would not be tolerated.

#4 The next appearance of the safeties was in a parade of virility. With skies that opened and flooded us every day and night, it was difficult to prevent the bore of a rifle from rusting. So, with true Yankee ingenuity, the men used them as rubber caps on the muzzles of their rifles.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Jul 12, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822545373

IRB Media

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Insights on Raymond Gantter's Roll Me Over

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 11

Insights from Chapter 12

Insights from Chapter 13

Insights from Chapter 14

Insights from Chapter 15

Insights from Chapter 16

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

I was assigned to serve as an assistant to the orientation officer of my shipment. The officer did not believe in books or theories that did not include a solid, unequivocal QED. He thought the entire Orientation Program was nonsense.

#2

We were in England for only five or six days, and yet the army apparently believed that anti-British sentiment had swept through our group. I was baffled by the accusation of prejudice. I’d heard a few wisecracks, a few sour comments, but I dismissed them as the escape-valve griping of men who were frightened and homesick.

#3

The prejudice I heard from the army was often provoking and sometimes silly, but I maintained that the men had every right to speak their piece. If they believed what they were saying, no officer had the right to tell them that certain things they were saying would not be tolerated.

#4

The next appearance of the safeties was in a parade of virility. With skies that opened and flooded us every day and night, it was difficult to prevent the bore of a rifle from rusting. So, with true Yankee ingenuity, the men used them as rubber caps on the muzzles of their rifles.

Insights from Chapter 2

#1

The experience of being in a war changed me and made me realize the gap between myself, wearing a uniform, and the civilian. The peasants in France and Belgium taught me the validity of that gap, the justice of it.

#2

There were three groups of war songs: the straight love theme, the songs that made capital of honest feeling and patriotism, and the music designed for the singing and marching of men.

#3

The war effort was largely ignored by soldiers, who were more interested in old music that had been popular before the war. The songs they sang were about their need for women and their hunger for the soft world of women.

#4

Food was a major topic of conversation while we were in the military. We would talk about the things we wanted to eat when we returned home, and while our wives received our letters and tore them open looking for words of love and comfort, they found us drooling about the food we wanted to eat when we returned home.

#5

The conversations in the Bastogne woods were similar to those at Camp Shanks. The men would complain about the Negroes, and the army would do a poor job of teaching them to be more careful with the labels. They had accepted the easy solution of label-sticking.

#6

At Camp Shanks, there were four of us opposed to the hot little group up the row. We made out fine. The latrine was decorated from ceiling to floor, and there were frequent references to sex and nostalgia. But there were also frequent references to faith and purity.

#7

The Editions for the Armed Services, a nonprofit organization, provided us with a variety of books that we could not get at home. They were particularly important for us to read while we were waiting for the war to end.

#8

When I go out at night, I have learned to travel with my arms curved protectively before my head like the bumper on a car. I can’t see where I’m going, but I don’t break my glasses.

#9

I was with the Belgian army in Belgium, and we were tasked with digging straddle trenches between the trees to prevent the Germans from hiding in them during nighttime raids. We had to go back to