Nuts! A 101st Airborne Division Machine Gunner at Bastogne

This is one of the most enjoyable shorter books I've read.The author is a simple man who got caught up in WWII, had a great career and family and found fame late in life due to the remembrance in Belgium of an act he performed in giving succor to wounded soldiers at Bastogne.This is a first person account of his life. It feels like a conversation and the author is a great raconteur. His portrait of life as an immigrant's grandson in New York, volunteering for service and joining the paratroopers (101st Airborne) and manning a machine gun in Bastogne among other late war experiences are told with vigor, humor and an eye for catching detail.He spent most of his life not knowing he had been immortalized (anonymously) in Belgium by a brewery for his act of repeatedly bringing wounded soldiers his beer filled helmet to comfort them while they awaited in a make-shift aid station for Patton's column to relieve the encircled troops. A chance meeting on his first trip back revealed he as the soldier behind the image adorning a well-known Belgian brew. From there he connected late in life with his fame first as the beer-in-the-helmet soldier and then as a representative of the ever dwindling number of Screaming Eagle WWII combat veterans. He remained humorous, humble, grateful and likable throughout.His well-lived and adventurous life is captured well in this recounting. This book will touch you, fill you with pride in what many in his generation did in the call to service, and remind you that countless numbers of us strive and succeed to live meaningful lives through family, work, and being decent human beings.

Bought this book as a gift for my husband, who loves history. He absolutely loved it! Mr. Sperenza was a wonderful story-teller. May her rest in peace.

I gave this as a gift to a veteran. She says she is enjoying it

This book came as advertised. It’s a great read about his experiences in the 101st Airborne. A great companion to Band of Brothers and his videos on YouTube.

He was a storytelling WWII hero. Thanks for leaving this legacy!

It's a good book so far

Just buy the book! It's great, gives you an in-depth sight into the mind of a hero and infamous story. Would have been great if he had been able to have an audiobook version before his death, but a great read nonetheless.

If you want a Soldier's tale written by a grunt without pomp and fluff this is the book for you.

I liked reading this because it doesn't glorify war, rather it glorifies the simple things in life. and when he had the chance always shared love for life.

We were watching videos of World War II soldiers and their stories.The gentleman that wrote this book was such a good speaker with an impelling story, I had to buy the book for my husband. It did not disappoint. I would also recommend looking up a few of his interviews.

I purchased this book based on the stories he shared on YT. However, many were not mentioned in the book ford which I felt was historically critical. IE: the global map he found while in the Eagles Nest depicting the earth divided into 3rds (Japan, Italy, Germany), stealing the jeep and driving, items left out of the beer story, buying and driving that car and bartering for gas, and WAY too much about his sex life. Had I known, I would have just stayed with the YT presentations, which are fantastic. He is a history teacher for Pete's sake!! I want history, please!!!

I just received the book. I started reading and felt bad that I had to put it down to go to sleep. I watched the documentary and that is why I bought the book.

If You Know Your WWII History Or Not You Will Enjoy This Book. I Haven't Picked Up A Book In Years So When I Was Told About This Gentleman From My Brother Who Was In The Air Force And His Friend Was Talking About This Book I Went On Amazon For This Book Called NUTS! So When I Got It And Started Reading It I Couldn't Put It Down If I Didn't Have To Sleep I Would Finishes It In One Or Two Days But I Took Three And A Half Days So If You Want A Great Book. This Is It.

This is another top notch first hand account of a turning point in WWII. Look for the video of this gentleman's personal account. It led me to buy this book. Sadly, he is another member of the greatest generation to leave us of late, but, boy, could he spin a yarn.

I first heard about this gentleman on a utube interview and I bought the book to expand on it. He was a great story teller and a wonderfull person. And another of the greatest generation who just receintly left us. You will ejoy this book.

Great read. You cover Mr Speranza's life from his childhood, the war, post war, children and the tremendous number of re-unions in Europe and the US. The war is half the story, achieving the American dream is the other half.

A gifted writer describing his personal life adventures, beginning as a young American Italian boy, evolving to a fearless paratrooper in WWII, meeting his dream gal, marriage, kids, teacher, labor organizer. Uncommonly humble concerning his heroic participation at Bastogne. (Suggest reading "If You Survive--From Normandy To The Battle Of The Bulge To The End Of World War II--One American Officer's Riveting True Story" by George Wilson for intense combat descriptions.) A deeply poignant and heartwarming memoir.

If you get a chance to see Vincent (I'll wager he goes by Vinnie) on You Tube, do it! This guy can tell stories and they're all true! The climax to the story takes place 50 some years after the war. If you know Bastogne you'll recognize the story immediately. One Hell of a soldier!

As the granddaughter of General Patton who is known For his own heroic acts connected with Bastogne, I am thrilled to read about this young soldier who took it upon himself to fulfill an act of goodness. Speranza is now almost as famous as PATTON in the battle of the bulge region. He has become the poster boy for our beloved veterans there. His golden heart and vivacious humorous personality holds within someone who seriously emphasizes that we never lose our respect and remembrance for the fallen of World War II. What’s wonderful about this book is that Vince has allowed the best of himself to come forward and when you read it you really do feel as though he is reading it to you. I love to quote him describing another person‘s reaction to the read. “It will make you laugh. It will make you cry.… And sometimes it will even make you blush!” I love this book and you will too!

This is a must read for anyone interested in personal accounts of World War II. It is told in an honest, interesting first person narrative, which, in my opinion, would make this book an excellent candidate for a very easily adapted and engaging screenplay. Mr. Speranza's personal accounts of his patriotic family's origins in the United States, his vivid accounts of war experiences... both harrowing and hilarious... make this book not only a very interesting read, but a very useful tool to help people comprehend the mindset of his "Greatest Generation" of American soldiers.I travel to Europe many times yearly to work on a remembrance project collecting civilian accounts of the Invasion of Normandy through to the Liberation of Berlin, and I cannot tell you how many times I have drawn from this particular book to enable myself to ask questions that draw out the interesting and very personal accounts of what WWII meant to the people in Europe. Mr. Speranza's narrative is not overly dramatized in order to glorify himself, yet he does not mince words about the horrors of warfare, either. I try to use his honest approach to his experiences as an example in order to help myself draw out civilians' honest accounts of their experiences and deeds... not glorifying them, nor belittling them.The ONLY negative thing I can say about this book is that it is too rare. IF ONLY there were not more men as articulate as Mr. Speranza, who followed through setting his experiences down on paper, we would not have lost hundreds of thousands of stories such as his before others in his greatest of "Great Generation" soldiers and civilians have passed on.This is one of those rare books that is such an honest and well told account of an extraordinary man's life, I found myself disappointed that the book actually ended. I've read it many times on long flights back and forth across the Atlantic, and still pick up new bits of information each time I read it that help me to, in turn, ask questions of civilians in France, Belgium and the Netherlands, as to how they felt or reacted to certain aspects of the war.It truly should be made into a movie, not by someone who embellishes war stories to make them "Hollywood acceptable," but to tell one incredible man's journey through the war, so that human beings can see the human side of WWII. It's beautifully written, honestly blunt, and interesting to the point that, if one reads it once, they will read it again.