Merriam Press World War 2 Memoir Series. The World War II Memoir of a Reluctant Rifleman. What happens when an Ivy League preppy is suddenly dumped from a comfortable college environment into combat as a rifleman? Hadden knew that he would find no glory in a foxhole, and for the first two years of his service managed to avoid answering that question. Knowing he would never be a hero, he said "Not me!" to the Air Corps and to the OSS. But he was sucked into war's vortex. And so it was that in the early morning hours of 16 December 1944-the date the Germans launched their surprise Ardennes Offensive-Hadden found himself exactly where he dreaded to be: in a front line foxhole with the 28th Div., stupefied by the first assault. And it goes on to document how almost miraculously the survivors rose above their "chickenshit" training and their misguided and even cowardly leadership. It strips away the veneer that cloaks most combat writing and lays bare what soldiers really think. 30 photos, 3 maps.