Hope and Honor

In this remarkable story, Shachnow, born a Jew in Lithuania in the 1930s, survives, the Soviets, then the Nazis (including a concentration camp), then the Soviets again. He escapes after the war to Germany, where he refines his scrappiness. With the assistance of a family in Salem, Massachusetts, he and his immediate family move to Salem, where he works hard, finishes high school, marries a local girl, joins the Army, and becomes a Green Beret. No fiction writer could have invented this saga. Brian Emerson has a resonant baritone that is stately in delivery. He is clear in his pronunciation and does well with the various non-English names and words. His delivery of dialogue is appropriately expressive. M.T.F. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine

June 21, 2004
Part Holocaust memoir and part U.S. Army career narrative, this tale of an extraordinary life begins with young Schaja Shachnowski, a Lithuanian Jew, watching the Nazis march into his town. Taken with his family to a concentration camp, they survived by bribery, quick wits, the help of the Jewish camp police and the occasional assistance of local Lithuanians. Schaja was impressed by American GIs and remembered them after he and his family were eventually admitted to the U.S.: wanting to marry a Christian girl whom his family loathed and also unable to find a decent job, he enlisted in the army in 1955. This began a 40-year career, covered in the book's second half, that ended with him a much decorated major general, having spent most of his career in Special Forces, eventually becoming its commanding general. He served two tours in Vietnam, commanded the Berlin Brigade and fought for an enlarged role for Special Forces. He is also still married to his boyhood love, a remarkably enduring person in her own right. Schachnow's life certainly demonstrates the title qualities, as well as high professional integrity and a ferocious will to survive. His telling of it is not always graceful, but his story comes through clearly and with conviction. Agent, Elizabeth Winick for McIntosh & Otis Inc.