The Scarlet Willows

Winter, 1944. In the frigid battlefields of Belgium, Lieutenant Jack Frazier fights to hold off Hitler's Ardennes Offensive alongside his courageous men, "killing and dying, wounding and being wounded."
Jack's beautiful fiancée waits at home in Missouri, but the longer he is at war, the less he feels he can possibly communicate with her. When his jeep kills a chicken belonging to a Belgian widow, she overcomes her anger at the carelessness of American soldiers and offers help to an ally. Over the remaining hard-fought months of the war, the two share their understanding of the terrible "things which happen in your mind when you must kill other men." The passion that kindles between them threatens Jack's relationship with his fiancée and his plans for a future at peace.
A novel of love as well as war and its aftermath, The Scarlet Willows vividly depicts the horror and suffering of combat as well as the heroism and the bonds forged among soldiers. Readers of historical fiction and those with an interest in military history will want to follow Jack Frazier on his journey from global insanity toward happiness despite the scars of trauma.
Colonel Eugene Louis Lash (1912-1991) was a career Army officer who served during World War II as a member of the 535th Battalion of the 99th Infantry during the Battle of the Bulge. Also a writer of fiction, he incorporated some of his personal experiences in The Scarlet Willows.