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Painter and muralist William A. Foley was inspired by his World War I veteran father to enter the Army when he turned eighteen. Foley desperately wanted to be in on the action as, in 1945, World War II began to wind down. He got his wish, arriving in Europe in January of '45 during the closing days of the Battle of the Bulge. Assigned to the 94th Infantry Division, Foley was paired with a soldier named Dan and saw immediate action in the Ardennes Forest on the Belgian/German border. The re-capture of St. Vith and the march to the Saar River led to the deaths of scores of men in Foley's division, including Dan, but the young soldier himself escaped with only minor wounds. After destroying more than half of Hitler's vaunted 11th Panzer Divison, Foley and the 94th breached the Siegfried Line and eventually reached Germany's Rhine River. Foley's need to capture his thoughts on paper led him to sketch the scenes of war etched in his brain. His drawings drew the attention of his comrades, and soon other soldiers were saving bits of paper and pencils for Foley's use. Decades after the war, his pictures of Dan and the other members of his division fell into the hands of his daughter who urged their publication. Foley's reunion in the late '90's with other members of the 94th cleansed him of the nagging memories of World War II and led him to publish these memoirs. In Visions from a Foxhole, Foley paints a compelling picture of battle where young men grow old quickly. The title of the work is explained early on when Foley recounts his instruction in the art of foxhole digging. Mentored by Dan, Foley learned to dig deep and quickly in order to save himself from incoming artillery fire. Foley tells of spending many a night during that coldest and snowiest winter in Belgian history curled up in his foxhole alongside Dan. Once he shared his space with a German shepherd, a guide dog who apparently had strayed from his post along the German lines. As Foley tells it, that was the warmest he'd slept in many a day as the dog lay on top of him and sheltered him from the cold wind. Foley describes the towns and forests of Germany with the artistic skill of one born to the paint brush. His later work as a graphic artist and muralist confirms his talent, but his ability to turn pictures into words, as he's done in this book, is amazingly moving. Those who served in the Battle of the Bulge, the worst conflict of the war in terms of American losses, will appreciate this memoir by one of their own. For those of us who have only heard stories of this battle in social studies classes, this book is a living pictorial of one of the darkest times in modern history and a glimpse into the mind and soul of a man forever changed by those events.
Reviewed by Mary V. Welk, July 2003
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