A Dishonorable Discharge: A Novel of Love and War

An historical romance set against the backdrop of the war in Europe and how a couple's love conflicts with duty.

Walter Steinberg is from Marietta, Ohio. He earned a degree in Industrial Engineering just before being drafted into the Army in June 1942. He becomes the commanding officer of Reconnaissance Patrol 763, consisting of three jeeps and an M8 armored car. He spends 18 months training and instructing recon groups at Fort Carson, Colorado, before being sent to England in May 1944.

His group is sent to southeast England and becomes part of the decoy established to confuse the Germans as to the location of the Normandy Invasion. They become part of the St. Lo breakout on July 25, 1944. After a long patrol, they arrive in Domfront where they rest and visit a Red Cross Service Unit. Walt meets Ashley Miller, a nurse with the field hospital near the regimental headquarters. After the next patrol, he brings Ashley flowers, and they begin a love affair. During the third patrol, Walt is injured in a mortar attack and arrives at Ashley's hospital. He meets Henry Weidman, a Lutheran chaplain. After several weeks, Walt is transferred to a Paris hospital for recuperation. He and Ashley develop an intense love affair. To facilitate Walt's recovery, the couple spend a short leave in Senlis, an ancient royal town north of Paris.

Walt leads his patrol on a guarded reconnaissance on the Moselle River on the Luxembourg/German border during the Battle of the Bulge. After a tedious eight week patrol, the men receive an extended leave in Paris. Ashley informs Walt that she is pregnant. Weidman, against Army rules, unofficially marries them. Ashley is sent back to the U.S. on a General Discharge due to trauma from overwork. She settles in Winerfield, Missouri, Pastor Weidman's home. She works for a local physician and gives birth to a son on September 1, 1945. Walt returns to his patrol and crosses the Moselle River into Germany. He is wounded a second time when the armored car is hit by an anti-tank shell in early April. He recovers and his patrol scouts Germany for black marketers after the war. Discharged in late 1945, Walt joins Ashley in Winfield and are officially married by Weidman.