One Step Forward: The Life of Ken Dahlberg - Tapa dura

"One Step Forward presents a remarkable portrait of a Minnesotan who became an American hero. I think of Ken as the protagonist of the Greatest Generation. This book gives us authentic insight into one man's life as he was shaped by monumental events and contributed to the transformation of American life in the 20th century."

From a Wisconsin dairy farm to the battlefields of World War II, from starting a small post-war business to running an international company, Ken Dahlberg’s life follows the arc of the “Greatest Generation.” He milked cows and shot squirrels as a kid, joined the Army Air Corps at 24, flew cover for the D-Day invasion of Normandy, and shot down 15 German planes to become one of America’s few triple aces. He also was shot down three times, escaped twice and ended the war in a POW camp in Moosburg, Germany.The French couple whose estate he parachuted into the first time he was shot down called him “a charming American aviator.” They fêted him in liberated Paris and went on to become life-long friends. The tank driver who rescued him the second time reappeared in his life in most unusual circumstances during the Watergate years He returned from the war to start a career in the electronics industry that would lead to the founding of the Miracle Ear hearing aid company. A devotee of capitalism and the free-enterprise system, he is the epitome of the successful entrepreneur. But, he says, “you have to have a little luck, too.” The stories he tells in One Step Forward with the help of writers Al Zdon and Warren Mack capture the drive—and the luck—behind this quintessentially American life.