3 comments about Becton: Autobiography of a Soldier and Public Servant.

1. "Becton's" autobiography is the tale of a great man of humble beginnings. Born the son of a handy-man, he took advantage of the opportunities life presented and he still serves as the role-model of someone we should all aspire to be.
   
   Lt Gen Julius Becton enlisted in the Army just after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Beginning the war as a private, he ended it as a second lieutenant. The book follows his military career through the hot wars in Korea and Vietnam, and finished with the Cold War in West Germany. Having led at every organization level in the Army, he retired as a Lt General with 39 years of service.
   
   After serving our nation in the profession of arms, he came out of retirement to run another organization that greatly benefitted from his proven abilities at international diplomacy and crisis management. He ran the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA), which coordinates United States assistance to other countries that have suffered man-made or natural disasters. After fixing OFDA he was asked to head the newly-formed Federal Emergency Management Agency. From there, he returned to his Alma Mater of Prairie View A&M University, this time as President, and saved it from going into receivership. He continued his pattern of restoring desperately needed leadership to (at the time) dysfunctional organizations one more time for the District of Columbia Public School system before finally retiring.
   
   Lt Gen Becton's career predated another famous Black American's military career by just a few years. Similar to General Colin Powell's "My American Journey", both books recount the experiences of two men who were very successful in the environment provided by the US armed forces. Gen. Powell's biography benefitted from a professional writer resulting in smoother flow through the book. The author could have also helped elicit more when it came to Lt Gen Becton's incredible accomplishments. In some cases, Lt Gen Becton's humility when relating his proudest moments whet our appetites, but left us wanting "The Rest of the Story".
   
   Lt Gen Julius Becton's life story is an incredible one. Becton's candid story-telling provided examples of what worked, balanced with his introspection as to what he could have done better. This critical self-assessment combined with Becton's 13 principles of the "First Team Philosophy" provides the reader with a very powerful lesson in applied leadership.



2. Personal memoirs of famous or near famous people can be risky investments for a reader. General Becton's book has no such risk though, and it makes for enjoyable, informative reading without any of the jargon that often can make military matters tedious to the layperson. In fact, Gen. Becton frequently shows an obvious effort to explain technical points in terms that keep everything well inside the reader's comfort zone. Autobiography of Becton compares very favorably with those of a number of other senior professional officers whose names are quite familiar to the general public and which were issued over the last 15 years or so by some of the larger and more prominent national publishing houses.
   
   Julius Becton is far less known in America today than he deserves to be. Not only does he have a public service career spanning more than 60 years, but it is a career highlighted by taking up tough jobs that entailed a lot more criticism than material reward. These included FEMA, presidency of a historically Black college in the South at a time when those institutions were becoming increasingly strained by the end of segregation at larger state universities and, the hottest potato of all, taking charge of the pathetic District of Columbia school system to root out the graft and incompetence, while fighting off the incessant backbiting from the power centers that benefited by the old ways of doing things. And he did this while in his 70's, postponing a well-deserved retirement.
   
   My own interest in the book was mainly in General Becton's military career. Although he had quite a successful one, it was a career marked by competence and solid performance, rather than the glamour, slogans and catch phrases, goofy reorganization plans or personality stunts that accompanied so many general officers I saw during my service years in the 70s and which were such a burden on their subordinates, at no gain to the service. I was also gratified to see several of General Becton's observations on Army inspections, personnel policies and run-ins with overinflated egos along the career paths. Oddly enough, I had crossed paths with some of those people (at a far lower level on my part) or heard a great deal about them, and in every case agreed with his polite, but negative assessments.
   
   At this point I should note that I had one fleeting contact with the author more than 35 years ago, when he swore me and my graduating class into the Army. The word "charisma" is terribly overused and not necessarily informative, so I won't use it here. I will say that General Becton was a man of monumental dignity, seriousness and personal magnetism. This was most noted by the families who were present at the time, who didn't discuss anything else about the ceremony other than what a stunningly impressive, yet approachable, pleasant and civil individual this was (and this was at a time when a member of an ethnic minority as a military general officer was much less usual than in recent years).
   
   Although I doubt that General Becton's book will be used much this way because youth today don't read much, this would be a wonderful thing for any teenager to read, whether black, white or whatever, because it shows the path to an excellent system of values and life choices. General Becton writes with a good deal of introspection and is quite open about some of his statements and decisions that didn't work out for the best (indeed, he is often too hard on himself in that respect). On the other hand, his many accomplishments and the good he has done for his country come across from the simple facts and not by a lot of self-aggrandizement from this modest and monumentally decent man.



3. LTG (Ret.) Becton has served this country honorably for over 40 years. His autobiography is outstanding and demonstrates that hard work will win out over all obstacles. He is truly one of this Nation's great heros and I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in learning about his life.

2 comments about Impact Zone: The Battle of the DMZ In Vietnam, 1967-1968.

1. Jim Brown served thirteen months in a Marine Corp artillery unit just south of the DMZ. He fought in some infamous places such as Khe Sanh and Con Thien, infamous enough that each of them have books of their own dedicated to just that battle. Jim Brown walked the walk, not just talked about it.
   
   At the sharp end of the stick, Mr. Brown talks about the impact at the front line of decisions being made back up the chain of command. In one story, B-52's come to their support and effectively stop the enemy activity. In a few weeks the NVA are back at it, shooting at them with mortars, artillery, even infantry attacks. Another set of B-52 attacks was requested. No, they were told that would be to admit that these fortresses were under seige. Did these guys never hear of George Patton's remark at the end of World War II, "Fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of man."
   
   This book cannot be recommended too highly.



2. This was an enjoyable read: well written, balanced, not self-serving. 2d Lt. Brown puts the reader in his mind when, as a shavetail artillery officer, he is sent to the DMZ where he earns his salt on the Rock Pile, Dong Ha and Con Thein. In addition to sharing the emotional experience on surviving the DMZ in that killing period, you get his insights as a leader as he discusses his strategic and tactical thinking in making do with less while trying to keep his men alive. He also shares the process of becoming disillusioned with the wisdom of the war and the failure of our government's political leadership. But his loyalty to his men and to the values of the Corps seem to remain strong. Too bad he left the Corps. He was the kind of leader that's always needed.

5 comments about FitzRoy: The Remarkable Story of Darwin's Captain and the Invention of the Weather Forecast.

1. The figure of Fitzroy lurks in the background of the Darwin saga and it is actually quite refreshing to draw him out on this score, both because of the interest in his life and work on its own terms and also for the light it throws on Darwin's early explorations in biology. Fitzroy's achievements in weather forecasting are little known, and his contribution to Darwin's education no doubt proceeds indirectly from the context of disciplined and meticulous scientific work in the Beagle's prime mission.



2. The father of weather forecasts and explorer of South America. Robert FitzRoy will be remembered by me. This book tells us about a great British aristocrat who gave more than he took. I love Patrick O'Brian and this could have been his but it is real story about a real person. FitzRoy was a remarkable man who history has pushed back to the shadows and labeled Darwin's Captain. FitzRoy, whose family is descended from Charles II, becomes a beloved British Man-o-war Captain, explorer, politician and eventual Vice Admiral. Mr. Gribbin gives us a picture of one of the last explorers and scientific innovators who charts South America, tries to support native rights in New Zealand and gives the world weather forecasting, yet is forgotten. His end did not justify his life. He was an amazing man who deserved more. He was faithful to his family, his country and religion. A good man and a great read.



3. I got this book because I am playing Fitzroy in Timberlake Wertenbakers play After Darwin. It has a wealth of information on the good Captain and enabled me to find a pathway into his mind that would not have had otherwise. The combination of excepts from the Narrative, Sullivan and Usborne's journals, and the record of Darwin himself paint an honorable picture that Fitroy would have been happy with. The recounting of the loss of a ship to the Fuegians on the voage preceeding Darwin is particuary interesting.



4. This work, by John and Mary Gribbin, combines a deep respect for Robert FitzRoy and his achievements with sound research. The end result is a book that is accessible to anyone with an interest in this complex and multi-faceted man.
   
   Described by Charles Darwin as being 'A very extraordinary person', Robert FitzRoy served Britain as a naval captain (most famously as Captain of HMS Beagle), as a Governor of New Zealand, and in the field of weather forecasting.
   
   While covering the voyages of HMS Beagle, this book provides information on FitzRoy's governorship of New Zealand as well as his achievements in weather forecasting. Along the way, we obtain glimpses of the struggle between a greater understanding of science and a deep innate religious conservatism. Robert FitzRoy tragically took his own life a few months before his 60th birthday.
   
   A fascinating book about a fascinating man.
   
   Highly recommended
   
   Jennifer Cameron-Smith



5. If not for anything else he did in his life, this man should be remembered for setting up the first weather forecasting service in England during the middle nineteenth century. That he was the Captain of the "Beagle" when Charles Darwin sailed on it as 'naturalist'; is not half as important as he was the one who set in motion the random currents that caused Darwin to be on the ship for its' full five year plus voyage.
   
   He was a remarkable man who because he was also humble and self-effacing never ended up getting the critical acclaim that his life's work demanded. His five year voyage on the "Beagle" resulted in the most detailed mapping of the South American continent from the Plate to Valpariso, and especially the area around Cape Horn and the Straits of Magellan. So detailed were his maps that they were used for over 100 years.
   
   During the voyage, he also determined all of the meridians and set-up their places on maps by which other sailors were able to determine their place anywhere on the earth at any time. Later, he devised a system by which ships could be signaled at sea that a major storm was brewing created the "gale warning" system. His work on meteorology was the first to use telegraphy to coordinate the capture of weather statistics so that information could be printed in newspapers the same day. He also devised the first two day weather forecasting, including the coining of the word 'forecast'.
   
   The story of his life and accomplishments is well written, and well documented, besides being entertainingly presented. Great Biography.

5 comments about A Sniper's Journey: The Truth About the Man Behind the Rifle.

1. Whenever I see a veteran start to opine about his PTSD, it sends up a red flag for me, especially when mixed with assassination stuff.
   
   The book deals with a guy who was selected for a very short sniper school while in Vietnam, and he then is sent into the field in order to basically assassinate people. He also claims the word "sniper" was never once used during his training.
   
   As I read on, my suspicions were confirmed when he described being assinged to the "2nd Battalion, 7th Infantry", (in the 1st Cav Div), which he also described as "the Garry Ownen battalion". Now those two gaffes right there show me he's a poseur. And I don't think you can hang that one on his ghost writer, who also allegedly was in VN.
   
   He also slipped up later, when he described being shown a photo of his intended target, who had a scar over his eye. After dispatching that guy, a couple missions later he looks through his scope and identifies a female he is supposed to snipe, and he recognizes her by a scar over her eye. Oops! The other thing is: you can not expect me to believe that he could just be given a photo to examine for a few seconds. That's ridiculous.
   
   Yeah, the book is a joke and the last half of it has a bunch of useless filler about PTSD etc.



2. I had great hopes in enjoying a book about the sniper's world as pertains to the CIA and its contracting out shooters from the ranks..having met a few through my years overseas. As it was I found the copy more of a recollection of events that are lost to history and emotional blocking: it was way too convenient memory-wise to have the first two kills both have scars above the eye--the officer and the woman...please!
   
   Still, I can recommend this book, as I found it to have a similar PTSD section to my own memoir that is also available on Amazon. I like the variety in letter responses from different PhDs specializing in the recognition of PTSD and treatment...which is what I can see resulted in Mitchell's book...considering the topic I sure wish I could give it more stars, but this was very thin in description and clarity of rememberance...a very far departure from Valentine's co-written pieces.
   
   I would suggest getting this book, as I did, to read the PTSD and then resell it on Amazon, which is what I'm preparing to do right now...the 3 stars are mainly for the PTSD section.



3. In "A Sniper's Journey" Gary Mitchell (with Michael Hirsh) lays out a supposed story about a small-town Texas youngster, new to the Army, who is pulled into the Phoenix covert program as a sniper in Viet Nam. In fairness, the reviewer is far more familiar with the Marine's program, but this overall story simply did not seem to ring true to a real sniper's techniques and mental processes from that long-ago time.
   
   Possibly as much as a third of the book deals with Mitchell's domestic problems with his wives and for filler, outlined a primer on PTSD. All this was "part of his journey" I suppose, but of marginal interest to outsiders.
   
   We should thank Mr. Mitchell for his 24-year service to our country, but in respect for the fine Army snipers, the great Carlos Hathcock and other 'Corps "One Shot-One Kill" shooters from the past, I cannot recommend this book.



4. It takes a special brand of courage to operate as a sniper in combat - but Gary Mitchell displayed greater courage in telling his story. This book is absorbing and is the first 'real' portrayal of post traumatic stress syndrome that I have read. Every war produces many unsung heroes - Gary Mitchell is one of them.



5. Like others have said, this book doesn't pass the "b.s." test.
   
   The book starts off suspiciously with the canned "emotionally-scarred-soldier-struggling-with-PTSD-years-later" scene we've all seen in the movies, then very quickly devolves from the improbable to, by around p. 85, the absolutely unbelievable. Never being told you're actually in sniper school? Getting orders to take out two people with similar identifying facial scars? Conveniently having absolutely no records to support your story? Being sent to execute Buddhist monks by . . . a Buddhist monk? Come on.
   
   Even when viewed as a work of fiction, the writing comes off as cliched and repetitive. After reading the phrases "I realized then that I was expendable" and "I knew I was never getting out alive" approximately 100 times apiece, you too will wish you had saved your money.

1 comments about Garibaldi: Citizen of the World: A Biography.

1. While this is a lively history of a hero's life, the appeal of the book is lessened by the akward translation from the original Italian. Still, a worthy book.

5 comments about The Labyrinth: Memoirs Of Walter Schellenberg, Hitler's Chief Of Counterintelligence.

1. Walter Schellenberg, -the closest friend of Reinhard Heydrich, an intimate of Himmler- was an "idea man" for both and his career sky-rocketted to make him the youngest SS General. How are we expected to believe that he had nothing to do with the mass murdering of Jewish people?
   Isn't he the one, who, on May 20 1941, ordered to stop the emigrations of Jewish people from France and Belgium, being the first to refer to the coming "Final Solution" of the Jewish problem... Well, you will not find this in his Memoirs, and neither in the US archives on Walter Schellenberg which have just been declassified (1999, 2000, 2001 and 2002) and even less in the British archives which have not been declassified.

   Thanks to a plea bargain with the British, owing to the Allies desire to conceal that the duke of Windsor (former king Edward VIII) and Wallis Simpson (his wife) were Nazi spies, Walter Schellenberg's history was rewritten with the help of his western Allies investigators.

   Schellenberg was given the time to prepare his defense in Sweden with Himmler's chyropractor, Felix Kersten, to be later acting as a defense witness. Thus, through the "Troza Memoradum" then written by Schellenberg, Felix Kersten was informed of how he had to adapt the "notiezen" which would be used for writing his own Memoirs. This avoided him of being convicted and helped saving his Gestapo accomplice.

   Walter Schellenberg had attempted more negotiations for a separate peace witht the west than anybody else event if he was carrying them out not for a return to democracy but only for replacing Hitler by Himmler. Even this part is misinformation.

   Schellenberg in fact was just an agent-provocateur, who infiltrated every treason attempt against the nazis. It did cost, at Venlo, Menzies and Dansey (heads of the British IS) their spy network in continental Europe.

   During the war it only costed Himmler the life saving of a couple of Swedish jews, and, at the very end of the war, a train of 1200 Jewish persons which were about to be liberated by the Allies: for this "Musy train" negotiations had been dragging since June 1944 (almost one full year) but were arranged in a matter of days when it became strategic for Himmler.

   Schellenberg worked as a chief of the Gestapo Office E, before directing (only for two and a half year) the political espionage of the Nazi Security Service. After the von Stauffenberg attempt against Hitler (which he and Himmler had fully penetrated) he also gained full control over the military espionage. Naturally the Memoirs loose the reader in the Labyrinth of the spy stories to avoid him getting to the Minotaur of the Holocaust. Wasn't the Minotaur symbolically representing the guilt of King Minos of Crete?
   Schellenberg's Memoirs duly called the Labyrinth are full of silence and subtle lies, well wrapped up in true fascinating but misleading spy stories.
   Unfortunately lots of historians did base other analysis on this twisted and biased account written by one of the nazi monster.

   To be read with more than caution as, contrary to what the investigators claimed, the author is extremely clever. Their statement about his alleged lack of intelligence was only aiming at covering the holes left in their own investigation, and at hiding some inconsistencies in their presentation.

   This book doesn't supply any answers but it raises a huge number of questions for the knowlegeable historian.
   One day someone will use the Ariadne thread to find the proven way to the Minotaur and fly above the intricacies of the Labyrinth with wings that the sun will not melt down.




2. This is an amazing testimonial about life within the NAZI German rogue state. Schellenberg's confessional documents the attempts by one man to put together an intricate secret service on the behalf of his totalitarian benefactors. His tales are rather bewildering and one is grateful that he had the time with which to memorialize his deeds in print before he died. Ultimately his organization became extensive but paled in comparison to that of the Soviets.
   
   Indeed, The Labyrinth also tells us much about the Soviet Union as their espionage links were so established that Schellenberg, in a country where he could randomly assasinate nearly anyone that he wished, was unable to completely disable the transmitters of the Rote Kapelle (Red Chapel).
   
   To me, the most valuable thing about the book is the historical primary source information it provides. These prose portraits of Hitler, Himmler, Heydrich, Canaris, Ribbentropp and Kaltenbrunner are quite thorough and illuminating. Schellenberg has many useful insights about human nature that he shares as well.
   
   The only reservation I had is that the narrator seems to be putting forth a sugar coated version of himself in its pages. This appeared to me to be a final bit of misinformation before death. His self-description is highly non-ideological and one feels as if they are being played while reading it. He really portrays himself as a highly humane individual who is an outsider within this criminal regime. His SS ranking of Brigadefueher belied such a conclusion.



3. Since Mr. Schellenberg was a high ranking nazi you have to be aware that he has to have been covering his own tracks. Lets be honest he had to walk a fine line between the complete truth and perhaps a noose. We can assume he stretches the truth a bit here and there and surely omits things he'd rather not have known. But it is fasinating to learn what it was like being as close as he was to Himmler, Hitler and the rest of the nazi leadership. We learn that even someone as high up as Shellenberg was spied on by his fellow nazis. Even someone at his level had to watch his back.



4. Its a well written easy to follow book about Walter Schellenberg the head of counter intelligence in the SS, he gives good details about a number of operations he took part in but their is limited details on a number of things such as concentration camps, death squads and July 20 plot.



5. AS an Academy graduate and retired Field grade U.S. Army officer; and law school grad and 32 year sole practitioner attorney experience. I see the hand of not only a brilliant analyst but also a gifted manager. Brigadefuhrer (General Major) Schellenberg was not only bright, personally ambitious and personally brave(VENLO incident, Iron Cross 1st Class) he was also a master at organizational intrigue.
   It is too bad we first backed OTTO JOHN and then REINHARD GEHLEN.
   With legal training Schellenberg ran rings around everyone!
   Why was he not the U.S. German nominee? Simple, he was in the SS AMT VI.
   His exploits make Sydney Reilly look like an amateur.
   BUY THIS BOOK AND STUDY IT!
   You will learn much about the "secret service."

5 comments about Someone Else's Yesterday: The Confederate General and Connecticut Yankee - A Past Life Remembered.

1. What more can I say. I have read many books on this subject, and there are many of them out there, but this I must say is the best ever. It takes you from the very start of his search to present day. If you are looking for your own past lives, this book can help you. It gives you ideas of how and where you can start looking for yourself. It lets you know how a journey of this type can affect your present life, good and bad. It also lets you know how past lives influances the thoughts, actions and memories you have today, even your dreams. I could not put this book down from the moment I started reading it, till I was finished with it. It takes alot for someone to come forward like this and share what they went through, and I must say thank you to Jeffrey for doing so. Martin Huffman



2. Mr. Jeff Keene had provided his own past life in a way understandable and as historically accurate as possible to his earlier life as a CSA General John B. Gordon. There were some very touching places in his story which literally brought tears to my eyes like the following -
   (1) The place where he explains about the spontaneous feeling of sadness he felt when he stood next to his daughter's grave from his previous life and who had passed off when quite young even before ever being named.
   (2) The place where he very humbly stays behind thinking of himself as quite junior when compared to other army commanders on the lines before being called by General Hancock during Grant's funeral to lead the funeral procession alongside him in the front lines.
   (3) The place where he vividly reminisces his past life incident when he saved the life of the Federal Division Commander Francis Barlow.
   On the whole the author comes through as a very great gentleman and one worthy of emulation in both of his forms as Gen Gordon as well as the current Fire Chief Jeff Keene.
   May God provide him all prosperity in the present and the yonder!



3. My husband and I were fortunate enough to experience a slice of serendipity when visiting friends in Connecticut. We had ventured out to visit a quaint little cigar shop and that's where we met Mr. Keene. I had never heard of him or his work, and after learning that we were from Upson County, Georgia, he was more than happy to share with us his experiences and convictions regarding his connections to John B. Gordon. The author is quite an interesting fellow--very personable and entertaining. The opportunity to meet and talk to the author has made this book much more meaningful and authentic for me. I highly recommend it to both believers and skeptics alike. It is quite the read!



4. This book really opened my eyes to reincarnation. I would recommended it to anyone that is unsure and needs proof into the field!



5. "Not yet" was the order given by Colonel John B. Gordon in the Sunken Road to the 6th Alabama soldiers under his command on September 17, 1862. "Not yet" was the response uttered by Jeffrey Keene on October 31, 1992 to a palm reader who had just told him that he died in that Sunken Road on the Antietam battlefield. Not yet . . . .
   
   "Someone Else's Yesterday" chronicles a Connecticut fireman's amazing discovery that, not only had he lived before, but that he was one of the South's greatest Civil War heros. Mr. Keene's book records one of the most startling "waking memory" reincarnations documented to date.
   
   Having no real interest in the Civil War, Mr. Keene's journey begins innocently enough on vacation where he felt compelled to visit Antietam National Park Battlefield. His accounting of what happened to him while standing in what is known today as "the Sunken Road" or "Bloody Lane" is riveting. And yet, it isn't until 18 months later, at a Halloween party, a palm reader asks him: "Do you believe in past lives"? Thus begins one man's incredible journey of discovery.
   
   Mr. Keene freely shares his thoughts and confusion as he delves in John B. Gordon's history and discovers parallel events in both his and Gordon's life that are undeniable. Events that are too specific to be coincidence. Two of Mr. Keene's most startling findings are that not only does he share an incredible physical "mirror" likeness to John B. Gordon, but that he has birthmarks and scars on his person that match John B. Gordon's battle wounds which he illustrates through photographs. Mr. Keene also shares photographs of notable Civil War era soldiers that bear a striking resemblance to people he either works with today or has worked with in the past. The latter evidence gives credence to the theory of "soul groups." This reincarnating groups of souls is a group or family with a common purpose and common level/state of advancement/enlightenment who work together towards a common goal. Whether that common goal was to win a Civil War battle, or to suppress a raging fire, the soul group theory comparison here is indisputable.
   
   I highly recommend Mr. Keene's spellbinding book "Someone Else's Yesterday." You may find yourself questioning your ideas about reincarnation!

3 comments about RED STAR AIRACOBRA: Memoirs of a Soviet Fighter Ace 1941-45 (Soviet Memories of War).

1. Evgeniy Mariinskiy's RED STAR AIRACOBRA: MEMOIRS OF A SOVIET FIGHTER ACE 1941-45 tells of a Soviet air fighter ace and hero who shot down twenty enemy plains during world War II - and was himself shot down not once, but several times. His memoir provides an soldier's eye view of the Eastern Front, surveying the fighting forces and tactics of the Red Army and providing a 'you are there' set of battle experiences. His first-hand experiences and accounts of battle engagements provide enlightening details on what it meant to participate in Soviet battle.
   
   Diane C. Donovan
   California Bookwatch



2. The book is more or less a typical memoir from the Eastern Front. I read it in one day and enjoyed it for the most part. Unlike another memoir which I read by a pilot, the losses that Mariinskiy's regiment suffered were not at all as bad as they could have been. He definitely served in one of the better formations and had one of the highest scoring aces, Gulayev, flying in the same regiment. Now, the real reason I give this book 4 stars is because of the horrible editing job. Mistakes are quite numerous! On one page you will read about the 29th Guards Fighter Regiment, on another the same regiment is now the 129th. Gulayev is spelled at times as Gulaev. Sandomir is spelled as Samdomir. And so on and so forth, it becomes quite annoying and definitely takes away from the pleasure of reading this book! The translation is also rudimentary at times, it could have been a much better read if time was taken to correct these two problems. Otherwise some of the stories are very interesting although from time to time I found it hard to believe the numbers the author quotes, both those planes he and his squadron encountered and those planes that were shot down, although you never know. Suffice it to say, if you can get by with the lousy editing and crude translation, you might just enjoy this book.



3. It's hard to categorize memoirs, particularly war memoirs - most are written and published with little or no editorial help, so they vary in style, content, and tone. Too, most are an unpredictable mixture of personal remembrances, marbled with more widely known history.
   Red Star Airacobra won't deviate from that rough format to any significant degree. What does set it apart is that Mariinskiy has worked in the publishing field, and he's picked up a thing or two over the years about literary writing. He's not a skillful writer, mind you (or maybe the writing suffers in translation), but he has a sense of how to translate the drama of his wartime flying experiences to the page.
   He manages to pull the blur of air combat into focus for the reader, and one also gains a sense of the gamut of emotions for these warfighters - on the ground as well as in the air -as the Soviets slowly push Germany back past the Oder River.
   One touching moment evokes Hemingway: he discovers after a near fatal crash that his female plane mechanic is in love with him. While Mariinskiy is being shot down, she is wounded back at their aerodrome. He visits her in the hospital, where he acknowledges her feelings for him. The next day, she dies.
   In other places, the pilots discus - elliptically - little known Russian poets, and they compare their experiences to those of Tolstoy's characters in War and Peace.
   For these rather unique reasons, this one has been a memorable and pleasurable read.

1 comments about Forrest: The Confederacy's Relentless Warrior (Military Profiles).

1. I was looking for a short but comprehensive biography of that legendary hero of the Civil War, Nathan Bedford Forrest and this book was a fine choice. It contains all the necessary details of Forrest's life with an emphasis on his military campaigns and achievements, accompanied by some nice b&w maps. The choronological list on the front pages was very useful and the account of Forrest deeds and beliefs was very balanced and fair. A very nice book for someone who does not want to spend a lot of time and energy delving into the bigger volumes published on the subject.

3 comments about Blood on German Snow: An African American Artilleryman in World War II and Beyond.

1. Late in World War II, a severe shortage of combat troops forced the United States Army to rescind its policy of racial segregation. They began assigning African American army units to combat duty. Until then, these soldiers had been relegated to such thankless tasks as burial detail, supply transport, mess hall staffing, and longshoreman work. This change, author Emiel Owens contends, played a significant role in spurring the civil rights movement twenty years later.
   
   The son of a Smithville farmhand, truck driver and jack-of-all-trades, Owens excelled in school and graduated at the top of his high school class. He was serving in an ROTC unit at Prairie View A&M when the United States entered the war in 1941. In the spring of 1943, Owens was thirty-four credit hours from a horticulture degree when his unit was ordered to report to Fort Sam Houston. There they began training on the 155-mm "Long Tom," an artillery gun used by the newly formed 777th Field Artillery, an African American Battalion that fought in major battles in western Europe, from the Hurtgen Forest to the Ruer Valley and over the Rhine.
   
   At the outset of the Rhineland campaign, Owens' gun battery was called upon to fire the opening salvos across the river. The five thousand guns of XVI Corps followed in unison, firing for three hours in preparation for Operation Flash Point, the crossing of the Rhine. "The fire was deafening, and the earth shook ... and gave the impression that hell itself had come ...."
   
   There are many stirring battle scenes and acute observations of war in this book. Owens has a knack for detail, describing the Siegfried Line and the human-made fortifications: Hitler's "dragon teeth" and the hundreds of pill boxes situated with overlapping fields of fire. He also manages to see Texas in the the black furrowed fields and long green valleys his units passes through. They looked "as if they had been plucked from around the Hill Country back home in Central Texas and just relocated to this spot." But there is also an undercurrent of racial injustice glimmering just beneath the surface of the narrative. Sometimes it's seen in a trifling way: the curious stares from Europeans unused to black faces. But other times it's insidious: the army's policy of breaking up African American combat units overseas rather than back in the States, with a result that no homecoming African American troops received a ticker-tape parade down Broadway.
   
   Owens returned to Smithville a decorated veteran. With the help of the GI Bill, he went back to Prairie View A&M, got his degree, and went on to to graduate work at the University of Ohio. He ended his academic career as Professor of Finance at the University of Houston. His story is a uniquely engaging one, giving a view of the social history of an African American soldier in combat, as well as providing noteworthy battlefield accounts of some of the more formidable World War II campaigns.



2. White, the military history is fascinating, the truly gripping parts of this book are about his life before and after the war.
   
   It cannot be stressed enough that there was a time when a person could not attend any school or pursue any academic program they wanted just because of the color of their skin. (To correct the previous reviewer, Owens earned his PhD from The Ohio State University . . . there is no "University of Ohio.")



3. A moving memoir of an extraordinary man who, despite all the insults and mind-numbing experiences he lived through, overcame all obstacles to serve proudly and with honors in the U.S. Army and complete a college education with postgraduate degrees. As a professor, a researcher, an international consultant, his chosen pathways always involved service and research benefiting his fellow man. This is the story of an authentic hero--not a fly-by-night sports or music idol--a REAL, genuine heroic role model of a man. Should be required reading for today's young men.