THE BEDFORD BOYS One American Town's Ultimate D-Day Sacrifice

It was a sacrifice no small town should have to make, but Bedford, Virginia, did. It lost 21 of its sons storming the beaches of Normandy on D-Day. Journalist Alex Kershaw follows each one's story, piecing them together from survivor memoirs and extensive interviews. Like Saving Private Ryan, it is a sad, gruesome tale that Kershaw tells, but ultimately both tragic and heroic. William Dufris's reading is harsh, factual, and forceful. It carries the deep pathos that must accompany seeing the boys we have watched at play being mown down on distant beaches. Though Dufris's reading rings with tribute to that town and those boys, Kershaw's more subtle message--that senseless slaughter in war, maybe war itself, is madness--resounds even more clearly. P.E.F. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine [Published: AUG/ SEP 04]