Passing The Baton by Bill Hirsch has sat on my expanding shelf of literature for five years. I knew I had to read it–and wanted to read it–however, it unfortunately never became a priority throughout my binges of business and applied fiction reading.
For whatever reason, I never found myself ready to dive in until recently.
Passing The Baton is a family-saga rich with deep world history and action filled WW2 military warfare. It’s strung together by a narrative that combines educational, research-heavy text with the a coming of age tale of innocence.
The protagonist of the book is Norman “Joe” Hirsch, late-brother of the author Bill Hirsch. The story is told through the eyes and voice of family-friend Jerry Rekned.
Norman, humble but confident, was described as:
…handling himself well in almost all situations. He didn’t pick a fight and didn’t have an aggressive attitude. If he got into a fight, I’d pity the other guy. That’s saying a lot for a twelve-year old. He wasn’t, and didn’t have to be, an entertainer. He had all the textbook qualities on the plus side of the ledger.
On the contrary, younger brother Billy was described as being:
…noisy, a jokester, and a so-so athlete. Billy was a strong little kid, slightly muscular, but on the small side. Billy didn’t pick fights, either. But he didn’t avoid them, and did get in to them. He was a scrapper, with more of a flare-up temper than his older brother. When he got into a fight, he could get furious and dish out plenty. He was a tough adversary, but there wasn’t much sense to his various one-on-one street brawls. Sometimes he was self-assured, and at other times he wasn’t. Norm had friends and was admired. Billy had friends and was amusing.
As Norman and Bill extend to the heights of their adolescence, they both enlist in the air force in 1942. The text makes it clear that they are both too naive to realize the extent of struggle, chance and violence they would face in combat. They both enthusiastically agree to join the battle as flight navigators.
The book has its peaks and valleys of historical context, humor and emotion. An extended metaphor throughout the book was that of chance and luck. Norman’s father, Reuben, was a gambler. Norman had the same love for a game of cards, and understood that as a fighter, the odds of survival certainly weren’t in his favor.
As his final 25th mission, which would mark his end of duty, slowly approached, Norm:
…felt a special discomfort that returned to him from time to time. It was a sense of disquiet about the odds. A professor would say “a statistic aberration.”
Norman’s plane was shot down in the heat of battle in Germany in 1944. Although the travels and horrific violence of the war aged him emotionally years beyond his time, he still lost the entire life ahead of him.
He was 23 years old.
Bill, after learning about Norman’s death, courageously agreed to finish his line of duty. He survived and returned home with the baton in hand at the end of the war. He would eventually pass it on to three children and seven grandchildren.
I’m one of the seven.
So, the baton has already been passed. It just happened to take me completing my grandfather’s story to realize it. I suppose it’s my turn next.