From Publishers Weekly
Part Holocaust memoir and part U.S. Army career narrative, this tale of an extraordinary life begins with young Schaja Shachnowski, a Lithuanian Jew, watching the Nazis march into his town. Taken with his family to a concentration camp, they survived by bribery, quick wits, the help of the Jewish camp police and the occasional assistance of local Lithuanians. Schaja was impressed by American GIs and remembered them after he and his family were eventually admitted to the U.S.: wanting to marry a Christian girl whom his family loathed and also unable to find a decent job, he enlisted in the army in 1955. This began a 40-year career, covered in the book's second half, that ended with him a much decorated major general, having spent most of his career in Special Forces, eventually becoming its commanding general. He served two tours in Vietnam, commanded the Berlin Brigade and fought for an enlarged role for Special Forces. He is also still married to his boyhood love, a remarkably enduring person in her own right. Schachnow's life certainly demonstrates the title qualities, as well as high professional integrity and a ferocious will to survive. His telling of it is not always graceful, but his story comes through clearly and with conviction. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
General Norman Schwarzkopf, Jun 22 2004
"A gripping story of a warrior's survival and ultimate victory against all odds.."
Review
"Sid Shachnow's life is an inspiring story for us all. . . . His powerful narrattive is a riveting read, moving and informative."
General Fred Franks, U.S. Army (ret.), co-author with Tom Clancy of the New York Times #1 bestseller Into the Storm, Jun 22 2004
"Sid Shachnow's life is an inspiring story for us all. . . . His powerful narrattive is a riveting read, moving and informative."
Book Description
Major General Sid Shachnow is more than a highly decorated Vietnam War veteran with two Silver and three Bronze Stars with V for Valor. He survived a crucible far crueler than the jungles of Vietnam: Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe, spending three years in the notorious Kovno concentration camp as a child. At age ten, with nothing but rags on his back, he was finally able to flee that hellhole. Most of those he left behind died.
After returning to his home in Lithuania, now occupied by the Soviets, and finding it unbearable, Shachnow and his family decided to head west, often on foot, across Europe to the U.S. zone in Germany, where they found refuge. To earn a living in the grim aftermath of war, he smuggled black market contraband for American GIs. His next journey was to America, where he worked his way through school and enlisted in the U.S. Army, volunteering for U.S. Special Forces, where he served for thirty-two years. His primary goal was to save others from the indignities he had endured and the deadly fate he so narrowly escaped.
From Vietnam to the Middle East to the Berlin Wall, Sydney Shachnow served in Special Operations. He grew as Special Forces grew, receiving both a master's and a doctoral degree. He traveled the world, rising to major general, responsible for American Special Forces everywhere, but the lessons of Kovno stayed with him wherever he turned, wherever he soldiered.
Hope and Honor is a powerful and dramatic memoir that shows how the will to live---so painfully refined in the fires of that long-ago death camp---was forged, at last, into truth of soul and wisdom of the heart.
About the Author
Major General Sid Shachnow was ten years old when he escaped the notorious Kovno concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Lithuania. He made his way across Europe where he made a living by smuggling contraband. He eventually came to America and enlisted in the U.S. Army, volunteering for U.S. Special Forces, where he served for thirty-two years. After serving in Vietnam and earning two Silver Stars and three Bronze Stars with V for Valor, he rose to the status of major general in charge of all U.S. Special Forces. Since his retirement in 1994, he has traveled widely, consulting for the Pentagon on special operations in the world's trouble spots, notably in Korea. He is a much-sought-after public speaker, and instructs from time to time at military institutions such as the U.S. Army Command General Staff College and the U.S. Army War College.
Hope and Honor FROM OUR EDITORS
The author of this book is a highly decorated Vietnam War veteran. But his two Silver Stars and three Bronze Stars don't adequately convey the story or valor of Sidney Shachnow's life. As a young Lithuanian Jew, he spent three years in the Nazis' notorious Kovno concentration camp. He and his family survived by bribery, stealth, and quick wits. After their release, they returned to their homeland, which was now under the yoke of Soviet domination. Fleeing westward, Shachnow settled in America, eventually enlisting in the U.S. Army, which he served for 32 years. In addition to his Vietnam tours, he served in the Middle East and divided Germany. A warrior's unique survivor story.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
Major General Sidney Shachnow is more than a highly decorated Vietnam War veteran with two Silver and three Bronze Stars with V for Valor. He survived a crucible far crueler than the jungles of Vietnam: Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe, spending three years in the notorious Kovno concentration camp as a child. At age ten, with nothing but rags on his back, he was finally able to flee that hellhole. Most of those he left behind died. After returning to his home in Lithuania, now occupied by the Soviets, and finding it unbearable, Shachnow and his family decided to head west, often on foot, across Europe to the U.S. zone in Germany, where they found refuge. To earn a living in the grim aftermath of war, he smuggled black market contraband for American GIs. His next journey was to America, where he worked his way through school and enlisted in the U.S. Army, volunteering for U.S. Special Forces, where he served for thirty-two years. His primary goal was to save others from the indignities he had endured and the deadly fate he so narrowly escaped. From Vietnam to the Middle East to the Berlin Wall, Sid Shachnow served in Special Forces. He grew as Special Forces grew, receiving both a master's and a doctoral degree. He traveled the world, rising to major general, responsible for U.S. Special Forces everywhere, but the lessons of Kovno stayed with him wherever he turned, wherever he soldiered. Hope and Honor is a powerful and dramatic memoir that shows how the will to live - so painfully refined in the fires of that long-ago death camp - was forged, at last, into truth of soul and wisdom of the heart.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Part Holocaust memoir and part U.S. Army career narrative, this tale of an extraordinary life begins with young Schaja Shachnowski, a Lithuanian Jew, watching the Nazis march into his town. Taken with his family to a concentration camp, they survived by bribery, quick wits, the help of the Jewish camp police and the occasional assistance of local Lithuanians. Schaja was impressed by American GIs and remembered them after he and his family were eventually admitted to the U.S.: wanting to marry a Christian girl whom his family loathed and also unable to find a decent job, he enlisted in the army in 1955. This began a 40-year career, covered in the book's second half, that ended with him a much decorated major general, having spent most of his career in Special Forces, eventually becoming its commanding general. He served two tours in Vietnam, commanded the Berlin Brigade and fought for an enlarged role for Special Forces. He is also still married to his boyhood love, a remarkably enduring person in her own right. Schachnow's life certainly demonstrates the title qualities, as well as high professional integrity and a ferocious will to survive. His telling of it is not always graceful, but his story comes through clearly and with conviction. Agent, Elizabeth Winick for McIntosh & Otis Inc. (Oct.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
A former commanding general of the U.S. Army Special Forces, Shachnow here recounts his life and career. As a child, Schachnow, along with his family, narrowly escaped death in a Nazi concentration camp in Lithuania. The fascinating story of their survival and transition to a new way of life in the United States is covered in the first two sections. In the third part, Schachnow details his nearly four decades of military service, from his beginnings as an army private in 1955 through two combat tours in Vietnam, positions of increasing responsibility within the special forces, and important postings as the commanding general of U.S. Forces in Berlin and commander of the JFK Special Warfare School. While interesting, this account of his military career is almost entirely anecdotal, and only at the very end does he offer some critical insights on the qualifications needed to serve in the special forces. Unfortunately, poorly constructed sentences and errors in spelling and grammar mar many of the pages. An optional purchase for public libraries. Edward Metz, USACGSC Combined Arms Research Lib., Ft. Leavenworth, KS Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Marginally useful memoir by a Holocaust survivor and American general. Now retired from military service, debut author Shachnow was ten years old when he and his family were interned in a concentration camp along with other Lithuanian Jews. "I developed an instinct for survival," he recalls. "If I saw any kind of trouble, I hid. I learned to disappear into an alley, a doorway, or behind a shrub." After three years of captivity, he escaped, hidden by a Catholic family until the Red Army arrived. Astonishingly, his mother, father, and brother had also survived. Convinced by an uncle to flee before the borders were sealed, the family moved westward toward the American zone, arriving in Germany in the fall of 1945. It took four years for them to secure permission to emigrate to America, where young Sid found work pumping gas and delivering groceries until joining the army in 1955. In the military, he writes, he blossomed, graduating at the top of his class from officer candidates school; apparently moved as much by the needs of his growing family ("hostile fire pay was $55 per month extra") as by career ambitions, he then volunteered for training in the Special Forces and assignment to Vietnam, where he distinguished himself in combat. After the war, he rose through the officer grades until attaining the rank of major general and commanding the Special Forces. None of these are ordinary events or attainments, but Shachnow writes with little sense of drama or self-reflection. Instead, in good military fashion, he too often reverts to pat phrases: he offers that his experience in the camps instilled a desire to "make sure no threat to freedom would go unchallenged again," adding, "Communism wasa real threat and it had to be stopped" and repeating the tired assertion that politicians, not soldiers, lost the war in Vietnam. Of some interest, surely, to those who served with Shachnow, but too limited to add to our understanding of the events he describes.
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