Book excerpt: A vivid, boots-on-the-ground memoir of World War II by an infantryman in General Patton’s army, from the Battle of the Bulge to Germany’s defeat On December 19, 1944, Gene Garrison turned nineteen. He spent his birthday in a muddy foxhole, listening to the cries of wounded comrades while exploding artillery shells sent shrapnel raining down on him and the enemy prepared to attack. It was his first day in combat. Unless Victory Comes recounts Garrison's journey as he was transformed from a fresh-faced kid from the farmlands of Ohio into a hardened soldier fighting for survival. From his baptism under fire, to the bitter fighting in the frozen Ardennes forest during Hitler’s last desperate push, to the end of the war on the Czechoslovakian border, Gene Garrison witnessed the war from the ground up. This is the story of one young man, far from home, surrounded by strangers, facing death yet never losing hope that he would live to see his family again.