Rare Encounter

Before he became a respected teacher of social ethics at Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary in New York, Roger Lincoln Shinn served as a combat infantryman during World War II. He kept that part of his life private, and only his wife knew the full extent of what he had seen. The story begins aboard a converted ocean liner carrying troops to Europe, where the Ninth Armored Division was heading to fight the German army. Among the officers on board is Shinn, a well-mannered young man, and John William Hall, a blunt Southern marksman and rifle champion who is breaking away from the family line he was born into.

Hall has left the anger of the Oklahoma Dust Bowl only to be pulled into the larger upheaval of global war. Their paths cross and become tied together during the brutal fighting of the Battle of the Bulge. Two decades later, during the Vietnam War, Shinn tells his stunned students about his experiences as a soldier and prisoner of war. The account also covers the controversial and striking choices Hall made when facing the enemy and the men under his command.

The narrative moves through family conflict, the women who shape the men's lives, social prejudice, courage on the battlefield, costly errors in judgment, and lasting love. These forces help determine who lives and who dies, and they steer two unbending soldiers, both new to combat, as they try to recover from their mistakes and endure the cruelty people are capable of at their worst. Drawn from true accounts, the book will appeal to readers who enjoy vivid human stories set against major historical events.