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The book which served as the catalyst for today’s column is “Patton’s Prayer – A True Story of Courage, Faith, and Victory in World War II.”

The author is Alex Kershaw, who wrote the New York Times bestseller “Against All Odds.” And friends, “Patton’s Prayer” is as powerful, poignant, upsetting, emotion-producing as just about anything I’ve ever read. For real.

George Patton. Am I an admirer of probably the most famous general officer of World War II? That is a question not easily answered. If ever there was a man of conflicting characteristics it was he.

More importantly, did he get the job done? Yes. Unequivocally yes.

Patton was a devout Christian. He was also inexcusably profane. He had what most of us would feel was an unnatural love of war. He thrived on it. His mouth and opinions got him into very hot water often.

The central theme, the focus of the book, was the “Battle of the Bulge.” In some ways, the outcome of that situation, how it was resolved, was as important to the outcome of the entire war in Europe as was D-Day. And the outcome, which way it would end, hung in the balance for many days.

The determining factor was the weather. Would it remain inhumanly, unbearably cold, wet, or would it improve, the skies become clear, allowing allied air power to top the scales in their favor?

The little known town central to the whole event was Bastogne, Belgium. Yet the book covers far more territory, and warfare than just the story of Bastogne and the Battle of the Bulge. Far more.

Probably more information, data – specifics – from that war in Europe has been recorded, written about, studied, than in any other period of written history ever. Ever.

Let me, then, give you just a sliver of the whole: “ There had been more than five hundred eighty thousand U.S. casualties in the campaign to liberate Europe, and more than a hundred thirty-five thousand Americans had died.” Plus, “Nineteen million civilians had died in a Europe that had in many areas been reduced to rubble.”

And on and on one could go in chronicling the horror of that war.

I’ll leave you with the prayer that General Patton, an Episcopalian, ordered Chaplain James H. O’ Neil, a Roman Catholic priest, to write, and copies to be delivered to the officers and men of the Third Army (250,000 soldiers):

“Almighty and most merciful Father, we humbly beseech Thee, of Thy great goodness, to restrain these immoderate rains with which we have had to contend. Grant us fair weather for Battle.

“Graciously hearken to us as soldiers who call upon Thee that, armed with Thy power, we may advance from victory to victory, and crush the oppression and wickedness of our enemies and establish Thy justice among men and nations.”

On a personal note, in 1960, while on TDY ( temporary duty) to play football for the 11th Armored Cavalry Black Horse football team, we had a mainstay at each of our home games.

While exhorting the team to perform well, pacing up and down the team sidelines, was a man who strongly resembled his father. We were well aware it was Major George Patton Jr. ( Who eventually picked up three stars.)

Fur alles, Guten Heilige Nacht.