ARMY BRAT

Army brat, six-year man at West Point, regimental commander in the Normandy invasion: three episodes in the life of Col. Reeder form the substance of this remembrance of people-and-places past (condensed from Born at Reveille). The boy playing baseball and raising hell on Army posts from an island off the Maine coast to Hawaii experienced the particular privileges and perils of being an officer's son in a less-than-genteel period. His struggle to get through West Point, with two years added because of failures in math and mechanical drawing, was enlivened by his good-natured determination and his success in the ballpark. As a field officer, he reached the apogee of his career, proving himself personally brave and an effective leader of men. Each of these episodes has individual interest, especially the first, but they are bridged only sketchily, and the maturing man never emerges from among the mass of incidental encounters. Boys who have read Reeder form a pre-selected audience that may be satisfied with these Jottings, but those looking for personal revelation will find little here.