North Platte, Nebraska, is a solitary outpost in the vast midwestern plains. But from Christmas Day 1941 to the end of WorId War II, American soldiers rolled through the town on troop trains, en route to their ultimate destinations in Europe and the Pacific. The tiny town transformed its modest railroad depot into the North Platte Canteen -- a place where soldiers could enjoy food, music, and friendly conversation during a stopover that lasted only a few minutes. Every day of the war, the Canteen -- staffed and funded entirely by local volunteers -- provided the weary, homesick soldiers with the encouragement they needed to help them through the difficult times ahead. By war's end, people from a town of just twelve thousand had served more than six million GIs.

In this poignant and heartwarming eyewitness history, based on interviews with North Platte residents and the GIs who once passed through, Bob Greene unearths and reveals a classic, lost-inthe-mists-of-time American story of a grateful country honoring its brave and dedicated sons.