Patton’s Prayer: Alex Kershaw

Gen. George S. Patton famously ordered an Army chaplain to prepare a prayer for good weather. Poor weather had mired his Third Army’s efforts to fight the Nazis during the Christmas season of 1944.

The Oscar-winning movie “Patton,” with George C. Scott playing the title role, includes the scene.

Twenty-five thousands copies of the prayer were distributed to the men.

The prayer included the lines: “Pray when driving. Pray when fighting. Pray alone. Pray with others. Pray by night and pray by day. Pray for the cessation of immoderate rains, for good weather for Battle. … Pray for victory. … Pray for Peace.”

When the weather cleared, Patton awarded the chaplain a medal.

Alex Kershaw centers his terse history of the Battle of Bulge on Patton and that prayer.

“Patton’s Prayer: A True Story of Courage, Faith, and Victory in World War II” chronicles Patton and the Third Army’s response to Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany’s last-gasp effort to stop the Allied advance in Europe.

While many histories accurately write that the Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes Forest in Belgium was the Third Reich striking out in its death throes, Kershaw’s book reminds readers that the Battle of the Bulge was brutal, violent combat.

“Amid frigid temperatures and heavy snow, 200,000 German troops overwhelmed the meager American lines … massacring thousands of soldiers as the attack converged on a vital crossroads town called Bastogne,” according to the book’s liner summary. “There, the 101st Airborne was dug in, but the enemy was lurking, hidden in the thick blanket of fog that seemed to never dissipate.”

Patton was a hundred miles away and needed good weather to reach Bastogne to drive the Nazis back.

“Patton’s Prayer” details the action of those harrowing few days. Kershaw captures the bravado, courage, spirit and genius of Patton. A powerful history.

Avengers Twilight

Age has finally caught up with Steve Rogers. The super soldier serum is running low. Rogers hasn’t been Captain America for years. The original Avengers are gone. Cap and the Avengers were destroyed and scattered following a harrowing day, years earlier, when they failed.

America is prosperous but no longer free. People cannot carry recording devices. They must adhere to certain rules. Most Americans readily accept these measures, having as Benjamin Franklin warned, traded essential liberty for a little security.

This is the world of “Avengers: Twilight,” a six-issue Marvel Comics mini-series recently collected in a trade paperback edition. Writer Chip Zdarsky and Daniel Acuna, penciller, inker and colorist, create a vivid story where the Avengers have lost and are lost while America has lost even more.

The aging Avengers face betrayal and uncertainty from loved ones, indifference from their fellow Americans and the machinations of a powerful and insidious villain.

It may be twilight but the sun hasn’t set yet.

This is one of those “what if” kind of stories that takes familiar characters and puts them in unexpected situations. One might think this scenario would get old but “Avengers: Twilight” reminds readers, if done right, these types of stories can feel brand new.