Company of Heroes

Starred review from February 9, 2015
In November 1969, Leslie Halasz Sabo, the newly-married, youngest son of Hungarian immigrants, shipped off to Vietnam to join the 101st Airborne Division's 506th Infantry Regiment, known as the âCurrahees." Sabo's comrades-in-arms admired his sense of honor and no-nonsense approach to the grim duties of warfare. On Mother's Day 1970, Sabo's Bravo Company was ambushed by North Vietnamese troops and he died in a fierce firefight on the Cambodian border trying to save wounded soldiers. Though nominated for the Medal of Honor, a bureaucratic snafu ensued and all traces of Sabo's deeds vanished. An accidental find by an intrepid amateur military historian set in motion the events that reunited the ambush survivors at the White House, where they would meet the Sabo family who had known nothing about Leslie's heroism. Journalist Poole, who first reported Sabo's story for the Ellwood City Ledger, masterfully conveys Sabo's life: his upbringing by wealthy parents who fled Hungary during WWII; his strong connection to his older brother, and the deep imprint that the rural community made on him. Where Poole truly excels, however, is in his portrayals of the gruesome work of war, depicting the maniacal seesaw between death at its most visceral and the simple pleasures of news from home.