Fightin' Army #24

A young soldier faces his first taste of real combat when his unit moves into a rough sector during WWII, haunted by nightmares of incoming artillery that all too soon become terrifyingly real. When his squad gets pinned down by enemy fire, he must discover whether he has what it takes to be a soldier—and his answer comes in a way he never expected. "First Taste" is a gripping look at how a soldier finds his courage when it matters most.

Sergeant Jones is famous for staying level-headed in combat, but when a stray mortar round makes him lose his last chew of tobacco, the unflappable soldier finally snaps—and single-handedly tears through an enemy minefield and fortified positions to clear the way for his outfit to advance. It's a tight six-pager that proves sometimes the smallest things can light the biggest fire in a soldier's heart.

When a backwoods volunteer named Johnny Cotton joins the Confederate cause, he proves himself a natural scout for Captain Gayler, gathering intelligence on Union General Pope's movements around Manassas. As Jackson and Longstreet prepare their assault to cut off Pope's supplies before Northern reinforcements arrive, Johnny finds himself in the thick of the fighting—from scouting expeditions to manning captured artillery—in one of the Civil War's fiercest and most hard-fought battles.

S/Sgt. Tilden and his squad push with the Allied armored columns across Germany in the final spring of 1945, systematically pursuing German units as Hitler's empire crumbles and Russian forces close in from the east. As the Luftwaffe falls silent and German troops surrender for lack of fuel and ammunition, Tilden's men advance closer to Berlin—only to be ordered to halt and let the Russians take the city. After years of fighting across Africa, Italy, France, and Belgium, the squad finds themselves standing down just short of their objective when Germany surrenders on May 8th.

When Corporal Jake Keller receives a hard-earned three-day pass to Paris, a German counter-attack forces him and Lieutenant Adams' unit to retake a strategically crucial bridge before Nazi sappers can destroy it. Keller must push through heavy fire to recover his pass and help secure the position for the advancing Third Armored Division. A gritty WWII tale that finds humor and heart in the small stakes that keep a soldier fighting.

Soldiers across the front lines wait anxiously for confirmation that the war in Europe is finally over, even as combat operations continue and rumors swirl from radio shacks to air bases. When V-E Day is officially announced on May 8th, the news ignites a surge of long-held emotions—joy, relief, and quiet remembrance for those who didn't live to see the moment. "The War Is Over" captures the human reality of peace breaking through four years of fighting, from the battlefield to a hospital ward where one soldier's measured response tells its own story.