Once Upon a Town: The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen

In search of "the best America there ever was," bestselling author and award-winning journalist Bob Greene finds it in a small Nebraska town few people pass through today -- a town where Greene discovers the echoes of the most touching love story imaginable: a love story between a country and its sons.

During World War II, American soldiers from every city and walk of life rolled through North Platte, Nebraska, on troop trains en route to their ultimate destinations in Europe and the Pacific. The tiny town, wanting to offer the servicemen warmth and support, transformed its modest railroad depot into the North Platte Canteen.

Every day of the year, every day of the war, the Canteen -- staffed and funded entirely by local volunteers -- was open from five a.m. until the last troop train of the day pulled away after midnight. Astonishingly, this remote plains community of only 12,000 people provided welcoming words, friendship, and baskets of food and treats to more than six million GIs by the time the war ended.

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

Across the world, America was fighting in a war, and in America, men were kissing girlfriends and hugging parents good-bye. Some didn't live to come back. In between the tragedy of war, and the sadness of leaving home was North Platte, a town which just happened to be where trains full of soldiers stopped briefly to reload supplies. In WWII the town was booming with commerce, as much as any small town might boom with anything.

Merely being a significant stop might be a story enough, but Greene goes deeper than the train stop, and into the core heart of the town. He discovers the great strides the community made to welcome the soldiers. The soldiers came from places just like North Platte, and most would've given anything to stay home. Duty called them to the war, and North Platte did everything they could to help them get there.

Whether is was the food and kind words, or just the friendship offered, the hospitality North Platte provided extended well beyond the expectations of the usual train stop.

Bob Greene describes the town with color and excitement, and brings us back 60 years. As now, with America again sending young men and women to the front of a complex, violent war, Greene's testimonial of the goodness of one community might spur us on to do likewise, in the context in which we live.

I fully recommend "Once Upon a Town: The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen" by Bob Greene.

Anthony Trendl


A Wonderful Gift to America   June 2, 2002
19 out of 20 found this review helpful

Got it yesterday, finished it TODAY! Quite possibly the best "feel good" book on the planet. Bob Greene masterfully shares the wonderful gift of the ladies at the North Platte Canteen during World War II with his readers. He takes you along with many of the ladies as they prepare for the troop trains passing through during World War II, with their heavily laden tables of homemade goods and cold milk and grateful appreciation, greeting every single train for 5 years. The emotional reactions of soldiers at the mention of the North Platte Canteen today is very moving, and the reader cannot escape the fact that the canteen workers gained as much from this experience as the 6 million soldiers passing through. They were, after all, doing it for their country. Bob Green captures well a patriotism based upon sacrifice, something that is viewed so differently today. Come to think of it, I don't think one of them used the word sacrifice in describing what they did. It will give you pause but it will also give you a tremendous sense of pride in what Bob Greene rightly calls "the best America there ever was." Kudos to the author for preserving such a wonderful part of our nation's history. Don't miss it!


Once Upon a Town: The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen   July 5, 2002
M. Harmon (Near MCAS, Cherry Point, NC, US)
12 out of 12 found this review helpful

Briefly: A truly outstanding book that is unforgettable. Perhaps sentimental, but thrilling as well. Five stars; no doubt about it.

Many years ago, I was a young enlisted Marine riding a train on a miserable three-day journey home to take leave. Hot, tired, disheveled and thoroughly miserable, I was delighted to come across a USO counter in a railroad station where I had to change trains. The free lemonade, cookies and conversation, "where ya' goin', Marine?" refreshed me and lifted my morale. I was very grateful at the kindness of the volunteers at that USO counter.

Bob Greene has written a book about an astonishing project during WW II that took place along those lines. At North Platte, NE, the local communities established such a hospitality site for the huge troop trains passing through North Platte on their way from one coast to another. They met every train during WW II, day after day until the war ended, a continuing kindness of magnificent dedication.

The troops, many on their way overseas, were not allowed to disembark at North Platte and the trains paused for only a few minutes. The men were doubtless bored, lonely, homesick, tired and thoroughly miserable on their crowded and spartan four or five-day train rides. Their pleasure at seeing the townspeople coming aboard with food, beverages, conversation and affection is easy to imagine.

The subject of the book may seem to be a commonplace and unheroic, if patriotic, kindness. Yet for me, it is hard to even think of this book without getting teary. I was very affected, and am not an emotional person. Imagine all those trains stopping in the darkness and all of those lonely and frightened troops. Imagine the local citizens quietly leaving their homes at all hours to meet the trains, bringing their offering of comfort and kindness. The unselfish love of those Nebraska patriots gives me a lump in the throat and you may very well feel likewise if you read this book.

I notice that every reader review of this book gives it five stars, an incredible average, although well deserved. My compliments to Bob Greene. He has written a real winner, a unique tribute to human kindness, a subject few books can address these days. I concur with that five-star rating, and predict that you will, too.


a Gem from a great journalist   June 6, 2002
11 out of 11 found this review helpful

For someone who was born after World War II, Bob Greene, in this book, has a wonderful grasp of and appreciation for what life was like on the Home Front during the War. For those of us who lived through the War, he tells a little-known story about a special place in the heartland, and we are the richer for hearing it. He has visited the places, and talked with many of the people involved...More than that, he makes certain that his readers can see them as well. I have read all of Bob Greene's books, on subjects as diverse as Michael Jordan, his baby girl's first year, and a summer-long 25th reunion of three high school friends. If you know him through his columns in the Chicago Tribune, or his books, you know he is a unique person and writes perfect nearly-poetic prose. I was not disappointed in this book, and don't think you will be either.


A Sweet, Sentimental Tale of Patriotism   June 17, 2002
R. Hardy (Columbus, Mississippi USA)
14 out of 15 found this review helpful

It all happened because of a mistake. It was 1941, ten days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and the people of North Platte, a small town in Nebraska, had heard that a train carrying Nebraska National Guard's Company D would be passing through, carrying soldiers to the West Coast and to war. It would be their very own sweethearts, sons, and buddies, and the town showed up at the station with food to give to the boys. But it turned out that this was the Company D of _Kansas's_ National Guard. The citizens of North Platte may have been chagrinned about their mistake, but they made sure those Kansas boys were sent away as well appreciated as their own sons would have been. After all, they were going to war for them as surely as if they had been home town boys. The idea struck some of them that sending the soldiers off this way was just the sort of appreciation the little town ought to be showing. And so the North Platte Canteen was born, serving soldiers crossing the nation during ten minute refueling stops in a little town of people they didn't know. Serving millions of soldiers and sailors, train by train, day by day, until after the war ended.

Bob Greene says he was on a hunt for the "best America there ever was," and if there are other nominations in the category, I bet he has them beat. His _Once Upon a Town: The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen_ (Morrow) is the story of his visit to North Platte, research into the history of the Canteen, and interviews with the now quite elderly people who took part, both as donors and recipients of the town's hospitality. Twelve thousand people lived in the little town, and six million soldiers got a sincere greeting on their way through. The members of the town paid for it all themselves, used their rationing coupons, made do somehow, and made sure that the tables set up in a room of the station house were full of fried chicken, cakes, pheasant sandwiches, hot coffee, and chewing gum. They made an unforgettable impression on the young soldiers and sailors, many of whom did not even know, for security's sake, where they were eventually headed and many who would never get American hospitality ever again. One remembered, "Those people spent all that time and donated all that money - to get the sugar and all that stuff. They gave up their own ration stamps. They were using their ration stamps for us. We all knew what that meant. I wrote home about it."

And their mothers wrote to the town, having read their sons' stories of how well they had been treated at North Platte. "Heaven bless you for what you did for my boy and every other mother's boy." The town still gets letters of thanks from the servicemen who came through, but Greene's fine book must be the best thank you written. He has told about the current North Platte, too, and of course it isn't anything like the one of sixty years ago, though his visit to an abortive Bikini Contest is hilarious. His last book, _Duty_, was about patriotism writ large in the crew of the Enola Gay, and this one is about the smaller, home-grown version. It is sweet, and if he gets schmaltzy now and then, that's the right tone exactly, and thank goodness he got some of these old folks to tell this story before it was too late. There are other fine stories of Americans doing the right thing, stories that are current; but the North Platte Canteen was inspiring, and sentimentally fulfilling, and unique, and gone forever.