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On The Bookshelf

`The Medic'

resenting over

100 Di

Eke finest artists In th

West

November 10 & 11
10am-Spm
Free Admission

Gala Openini: rFridaj evening, Novemker

7-ia: 3oprn

St5 anahan; wine, 4ors loeuvres k dessert
Meet f4e Arbests kBio3 pianist Marion Mansfield

T em ple, 28611 W. 12 Mile Road Farmington
Rios
South side of 12 Mile
Birilling" 8".
Between Inkster and Middlebelt

h ni

ovN,INNINNNINNINNINNIN,Nrstvvvvvvvvvvvv tv ■ ,mt,NNINt tNININt •NNINFN"Fv.

A FUNNY MAN

INDIAN CIIISINt

"Ruchi Indian Cuisine is genuine
good horrestyle Indian food"

Danny Raskin

• Indian Chinese
• South Indian & North Indian Specialties

• Daity. Lunch Buffet
• Weekend Speck! Lunch Buffet

BOB POSCH

▪ Banquet Facflit;.
• Watering Services

A Comedian & a Classical Guitar
Also appearing Big John Cionca

u OFr

I
Bt" one entry & receive 50% off
I seconu entree of equal or lesser value
I during dinner time only. Limit 1 coupon
per table. Cannot be combined with
any cther offer.

C011,3011

11/9
2001

94

Show Only '9.00

Sitdown Dinner... Choice of Grilled Salmon
or Chicken. Includes house salad, Gino's bread,
potato, vegetable & coffee

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1999 Cass Lake Rd.,

Just West of Orchard Lake Rd.

Reservations: Call Irene 248-682-6540

Expires vovember 30, 200 I

OPEN DAILY
for lunch or Dinner

411*/

DINNER & SHOW

Dinner & Show '24.50

29555 Northwestern Hwy.
(in La Mirage Complex)
Southfield

(248) 352-3200

http:www.ruchiindiancuisine.com

CELEBRATION
CONNECTION
DIRECTORY

in our
Classified Section

Book by native Detroiter bears witness
to the heroism of American soldiers.

tus of noncombatants.
"They were obliged to treat enemy
wounded as well as their own. I had no
had followed my dreams into
desire to give aid to the enemy. I had
combat. There I met the dead
imagined myself an armed, vengeful
and dying and faced my own
warrior. Still, giving aid was my assign-
death. It was all I wanted when
ment and I was resolved to do my best."
I first dreamed of war."
Litwak's "best," however, occasional-
When he was 18 years old, Leo Litwak
ly backfired — at least during training.,
took a trip to hell. It was a trip he took
"Others in the detachment had driv-
willingly, like thousands of other young
en ambulances or worked as hospital
Americans, and at no time was he per-
Orderlies. Some of the least literate
mitted the luxury of knowing
were expert at first aid.
that it was a two-way journey.
"When I bandaged a
The year was 1943 and
GI simulating a broken
hell had undergone a change
clavicle, instead of a neat
of address — several, in fact.
mummy, hand strapped
Litwak's ticket read: Europe.
to the chest, the upper
When the trip was over and
torso swathed in 2-inch
Litwak returned home, he
gauze, there was a tangle
filed every memory away and
of loose folds undone by
resumed his life. The experi-
the first movement. In
ence and the scars were his
time I picked up the
and his alone. Until now
knack of bandaging."
The Medic: Life and Death
He also picked up the
in the Last Days of World
knack of being a shrewd
Plucked from the
World II (Algonquin Books;
University of Michigan observer of human nature.
$22.95) is Litwak's autobio-
campus, Leo Litwak
Litwak refrains from
graphical account of the
was sent to a foreign
romanticizing the melting
time he spent witnessing the land to save the men
pot character of Army life
who intended to save
carnage of battle. Told in
during those years. He
that terse matter-of-fact style the world.
tells the story of overt
so typical of the best WWII
anti-Semitism among sol-
books, it reads like a lost letter from a
diers in his platoon.
lost world — a world and a generation
"Is it true, Leo," a buck sergeant in
that seem as far removed from ours as
basic training asks him, "a Jew is just
the dark side of the moon.
a nigger turned inside out?"
There is also, happily enough, a
Yet, he also recounts how, at the
local connection here. Born of
end of the war, these same GIs, walk-
Russian-Jewish parents (his father was
ing through surrendering villages and
a dedicated union organizer), Litwak,
towns, organized a seder for 35
author of Waiting for the News, a 1970
Hungarian Jewish women, who earlier
National Jewish Book Award winner,
in the day had been marched naked
grew up in a Detroit that was quickly
into town to be publicly executed.
transforming itself into the Arsenal of
Litwak, who'd never had a seder at
Democracy.
home (his father had long before
A first-year student at the University of given up practicing Judaism), asked
Michigan when his draft number came
the Four Questions.
up, Litwak was dismayed when the Army
Litwak acknowledges that only in
assigned him to a medical detachment. time of war is a man permitted a
"It was a disappointment," writes
chance to assess another man outside
Litwak, who taught English literature
the perimeters of class or background.
at San Francisco State University for
Like others who went before and
more than 30 years. "I didn't want to
after him, he discovers that college
be in the medical corps.
experience pales beside common sense,
"Medics carried no weapons. They
that "cowards" occasionally turn out to
operated under the rules of the
have more courage than 10 men and 4
Geneva Convention and had the sta-
commission does not a leader make.

ROBERT DEL VALLE

Special to the Jewish News