Some people live a life so full, so warm, and so unexpectedly remarkable that their story demands to be told before the world loses it forever. Howard "Howie" Buford was exactly that kind of person. Born in the sunny suburbs of Los Angeles, he grew up a carefree, joke-cracking, convertible-driving young man who never imagined that the frozen forests of Belgium would one day define him. This is his story told with love, humor, and the deep reverence of a friendship that spanned a decade and outlasted even death itself.
Howie enlisted in the US Army after Pearl Harbor changed everything, joining the legendary 101st Airborne Division as a PFC Paratrooper and eventually finding himself in the frozen Ardennes Forest at the heart of the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944. But this is not merely a war book. It is the portrait of an extraordinary human being who brought humor, warmth, and an unshakable spirit of camaraderie to every foxhole, every barracks, and every chapter of his long and luminous life. He faced the darkest moments of World War II the same way he faced everything else with a grin and a story.
Before the war, Howie was the kind of young man who filled a convertible with friends, invented games to meet girls at the beach, and sailed through high school on straight C's while quietly reading six books a week in secret. The military's IQ testing would later reveal the intellectual powerhouse hiding beneath his easygoing exterior, sending him to Iowa State University to study engineering a decision that shaped the entire trajectory of his postwar life as a California civil engineer, liquor store entrepreneur, and behavioral counselor.
Author Chris Cryer met Howie in 2015 in a grief support group, and what followed was a decade of friendship built over split glasses of Chardonnay and $6 tacos. She captures his voice with extraordinary precision and tenderness his pranks, his philosophy, his lifelong pursuit of friendship, and his deeply human reflections on war, love, and the passage of time. The final chapter, written entirely by Howie himself, is his New Year's message to the world, composed just months before he passed away peacefully on March 26, 2026, at the age of 104.
What makes this book truly unforgettable is Howie's own philosophy Live With High Hopes and Low Expectations and the way he embodied it every single day for over a century. He never displayed his medals. He never sought glory. He simply showed up for people, made them laugh, and reminded everyone around him that the most powerful force in any life is genuine, loyal, and freely given friendship. He was a man who survived one of history's most brutal battles and spent the rest of his life celebrating being alive.
Howie the Savvy Soldier Who Touched My Heart is a tribute, a love letter, and a living document of one of the Greatest Generation's most irresistible personalities. It is a book for history lovers, veterans, families, and anyone who has ever been touched by a friendship that felt too big for ordinary words. Read it for the history. Stay for the heart. And carry Howie's motto with you long after the last page is turned.
