On December 16, 1944, along the Belgium/Luxembourg/German borders, in the deep snow and freezing cold of the Ardennes Forest, United States’ soldiers began absorbing vast casualties in order to stop a surprise German SS counter-offensive. General Omar Bradley, commanding 12th Army Group comprised of General Courtney Hodges’s First Army and General George Patton’s Third Army, said this “Battle of the Bulge” ended on February 7, 1945, the day his armies regained all of the ground lost in the bloody onslaught.
Randall LeCocq and I, two of Montana’s many military veterans, decided to make a road trip to public libraries in Missoula, Butte, Great Falls, Bozeman, Billings, Miles City, Glasgow, Kalispell and Helena to tell about this greatest battle in the history of the American army from a Montana perspective. I call our appearances in 2018 the “Gonzo Road Show.” These are the thoughts and impressions that surfaced for me while riding around our state. Hopefully they capture how Montana has changed and answer General Bradley’s pressing question: “Whatever happened to Ring Neck Kelly?” In the current time of expensive and loud politics, I hope this quiet diary on paper will pierce the electronic noise relentlessly pounding us and our families.
John Driscoll has devoted most of his 73 years exploring Montana, except for time spent in graduate study and in the army. He holds advanced degrees from Columbia University’s School of International Affairs, Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, University of Montana’s Graduate School of Business and the U.S. Army War College. He is a former U.S. Forest Service Smokejumper, a former Speaker of the Montana House of Representatives, a former Montana Public Service Commissioner, a former member of the Electric Power Research Institute Advisory Council and a retired Colonel of the Montana Army National Guard. His last military assignment was working several years on the Joint Staff of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He currently resides in Helena, Montana, and enjoys pursuing historical mysteries that interest him.
Softcover, 368 pages.
