2 comments about Our Little War: The 1139th Military Police Company in Baghdad.

1. John Thulin, a veteran of America's war in Kuwait and the first Gulf War, presents Our Little War: The 1139th Military Police Company in Baghdad, a soldier's no-nonsense description of his front-lines service from the September 11th attacks to 2004. Yet Our Little War is also take on why the United States under President George W. Bush never should have invaded Iraq, and what desperately needs to be done instead. Thulin is not a pacifist, as his service record and the experiences he relates in sharp detail prove; rather, he is a realist who recognizes that the misguided war weakens America's position of world leadership and drains its resources. In order to keep America safe from terrorist threats, Thulin argues, its intelligence services must be re-tooled to deal with jihadists; increased emphasis must be placed upon teaching American operatives the language of the enemy; there must be a concentrated campaign to win over the hearts and minds of the Arab world; the war against terror must be battled in a more concentrated fashion with every financial, military, diplomatic, and legal means available; and perhaps most important of all, America must create an energy policy to free itself from dependence upon Middle Eastern oil, an addiction that effectively funnels money to its worst enemies. Our Little War balances its vivid impression of daily life in a war zone with a sharp and well-reasoned political statement, and is highly recommended.



2. This book provided an interesting insight into the experiences of the 1139th Military Police Company, a Missouri National Guard Unit that was called up and deployed to Iraq shortly after the fall of Bagdad. The book chronicles the experiences of the individual soldiers during their mobilization, pre deployment training, their year of occupation duty and the eventual return to civilian life. The period the book covers is the first year of occupation May 2003 through January 2004, so it doesn't include the subsequent events on the ground concerning the insurgency and the Sunni/Shia confrontation.
   
   All in all a good book for those looking for a soldier's view of the early stages of the occupation or the experiences of citizen soldiers serving in an operational area.

1 comments about Sock It to 'Em, Baby: Forward Air Controller in Vietnam.

1. Excellent! An unvarnished account of precisely what it was like to be a forward air controller in Vietnam. The author pays tribute to, and included a photo of, (the late retired) Lt Col Richard F. Nelson in the book. Richard replaced him and endeavored, unsuccessfully (because Cooper is Australian), to have him receive the American commendations due him. Cooper sent my sister Ruby an autographed copy of the book. Of particular interest is the fact that Richard, a former fighter jet pilot and Air Force military attaché in Tunisia for three years, served in Vietnam (and all over the world, including sitting in Florida in a bomb-equipped jet during the Cuban missile crisis) and was a decorated forward air controller himself -- although he opposed the Vietnam war. He supported the first Iraq war because Hussein was a bully who had invaded Kuwait and had to be stopped. He absolutely opposed the second, which was based on lies and greed, and DETESTED Bush, who didn't even serve long enough to "repay" his jet training. Richard went to Law School in Arkansas, had Bill Clinton for one class, and once said that Clinton was braver than he for his opposition to Vietnam. I asked him once why those in "the military" did not speak out more, and he replied that: "We all thought we were the only ones." He supported Wesley Clark for president, but, then and now, would have supported any Democrat or ANYONE else who opposed the war. Richard also felt strongly that the vets who served NEVER got their due. For the record, I am proud to say that Richard F. Nelson is my brother-in-law. Ricky Lacina (Ms)

5 comments about The General and His Daughter: The War Time Letters of General James M. Gavin to his Daughter Barbara (World War II: The Global, Human, and Ethical Dimension).

1. Excellent insight into the humane side of a great military man. Good reading.



2. There are a lot of books written about World War II and its commanding generals. There are usually written by historians, or participants writing long after the battles. This book is different. There are the wartime letters written by Jim Gavin to his daughter Barbara. They begin in 1943 when Gavin, then a colonel left the states commander of the 505th PIR or the 82nd. At that time Barbara was nine.
   
   There are approximately 200 letters included in the book. They were written on board ships, in foxholes and tents. They do not have the afterthoughts or 'point-proving' of books written later. They are the personal messages of a father to his daughter. They talk about the day to day realities of what Gavin was doing at the time, and about his personal reactions to combat and the war.
   
   The book provides an insight into the man and the times that is rare to find.



3. A unique footnote to World War II, and an unusual view of a famous general



4. This is an absolutely marvelous book. Barbara Gavin Fauntleroy has given us a very personal glimpse of a Soldier's Soldier who led his men from the front and was truly one of the great Generals of WW II. General Gavin's letters reveal the sensitivity and love that he maintained despite the strains of combat and command. One cannot read this book without feeling that you have shared so much of the personal experience as well as the love and devotion he showed to his daughter. It is a book that lifts the spirit and makes you respect the "Two Star Platoon Leader' even more.



5. THE GENERAL AND HIS DAUGHTER: THE WARTIME LETTERS OF GENERAL JAMES M. GAVIN TO HIS DAUGHTER BARBARA provides an excellent portrait of the American experience in World War II, telling of a commander who at the age of 37 became the 82nd Parachute Infantry's commanding general, and the youngest to become a major general since the Civil War. His letters were written from the field to his nine-year-old daughter Barbara and provide plenty of 'you are there' insights into the realities of combat. It's a 'must' for any serious, in-depth World War II collection, especially libraries specializing in memoirs and writings from participants.

No comments about Southern Hero: Matthew Calbraith Butler, Confederate General, Hampton Redshirt, and U.S. Senator.

5 comments about Vietnam-Perkasie: A Combat Marine Memoir.

1. The Vietnam war, what was it like for a combat marine? Read this book and its sequel to find out. Mr. Ehrhart is a gifted storyteller. His story is unique. It's amazing how little it is referred to in bibliographies.



2. Was required reading in a class I took about the Vietnam War. Reading this memoir rapidly went from a school assignment chore to pleasure. I read the next two books in the series the following summer. Ehrhart exposes his inner self on the page to the point where it can actually be somewhat difficult to read. He gave a lecture to our class at the end of the semester, and it was quite moving. Do check it out.



3. In this story, Ehrhart beautifully tells of the I Corp Marine's experience in '67-68. The cost, both physically and spiritually,to the soldier has to my mind never seemed so true. Can the innocence and ignorance, if indeed they are different things, last in the face of the reality of war's warped and mishapen environment? What happens to the soldier when faced with his own ignorance and the evils of war, for which he is in many ways responsible? The tension between the two different Ehrharts in the book lies in the attempt to justify his actions in Viet Nam to himself, and if nothing else, to find some comfort even from outside himself. He is both proud and disgusted (I wish I had a stronger word here) by his "accomplishments" in Viet Nam. Where do we find ourselves when the conflict is over? The answer is perhaps nowhere, perhaps in the shower. (You must read the book to understand my last statement):)



4. This is one of the best books written by a combat soldier in Vietnam. You travel with Ehrhart from his home in Perkasie, PA to boot camp and then to some of the most harrowing fighting of the Vietnam War. But this isn't just another great war story. There's a personal voyage of discovery--as there is in many war stories. But this one is into a deep and broad wondering, not just about the nature of war and the feelings roused by killing and seeing death, but into a broader horror about the truth of this war. Ehrhart slowly peels back the layers of his awakening, not so much to any truth, but to a series of questions about his own gullibility (perfectly understandable) and a nation's gullibility. The truth as it is revealed seems too simple to Ehrhart; the twisting of honorable intentions too obvious. But if he get's it, many of those he faces upon his return do not. What to do? Write about the simple yet profound truths he found in Vietnam, and keep writing about them since the follow-up books are very moving and affecting portraits of a man being honest about himself, and in the process divulging powerful insights about our nation. The personal in this case makes big points about who are all are as Americans. Can't recommend his writing highly enough.



5. I put this up there with the Vietnam novels of Tim O'Brien. I was blown away by it. Too bad more people have not heard of it. Please read this book!

No comments about George Stoneman: A Biography of the Union General.

5 comments about The Hotel Tacloban.

1. The Hotel Tacloban is a fascinating read. The book flows well, reads easily, and keeps pulling you along to the next chapter - a marvelous peice of literary craftsmanship. The only downside is the nagging thought that it might just be a made-up story.

   That would be easy to accept if the author said outright that it was fiction. It would also be easy to accept if we had independent confirmation of the events. What is hard to accept is that the story has the ring of authnticity - we do know that many things just like this happened - and the author claims that it is true, but we have no way of proving or disproving those assertions.

   A war veteran myself, I can testify that things like the events related in this book are unfortunatly normal occurences in many circles throughout the world, even today. Further, the types of actions purported to have been carried out by the US Army at the end of the book have in fact been done before, another well-documented fact. More importantly, perhaps, is this - the words of the author ring with the tone of truth. A wise VA counselor once remarked to me, when we were discussing whether or not specific events had occured to a mutual aquaintance, that even if we could never establish the exact sequence or total sum of events, it was obvious that SOMETHING had happened to him. I get the same feeling from this book. Whether it is the story given here or something else entirely, there seems to be some dark chapter in the life of the man protrayed. Thus, while I will never quote from this book as history, I believe that it does bequeth an adequate portrayal of what life was like for some people during the war. I look at it more as historical novel than historical fact, which allows me great luxury in finding a place for it in my library.

   Read it for what it is, though we can never know for sure. Is it eyewitness to history, a fascinatingly and cunningly crafted fictional masterpiece, or the dark broodings of a man with deep psychological problems of some sort? It is a remarkable example of whichever one of those it is, and it is also a reminder (no matter what the truth is) of the dark side of the largest war ever fought on this planet.




2. Amazon.com is wrong when it says my book is out of print and that a picture of the dust jacket is not available. The Hotel Tacloban is published by iUniverse.com as an Author's Guild Backinprint book. You can get it by going to my website and clicking on the dust jacket for the Hotel Tacloban, which will take you directly to iUniverse.com, where you can order the book.



3. Looking at other Amazon reviews this book has reviews from very good to very bad. I was expecting to be somewhere in the middle but it turned out to be quite a bit better than I expected. I would say it is worth reading if you come across it.



4. As an historian who had devoted some 15,000 hours researching and documention the Pacific POWs, I can say, unequivacably, the the story is PURE fiction.
   Valentine conflates numerous actual events to this make believe story about a POW. No record exists, any where, that his father was on such a patrol, that such a POW camp existed or that any of the named POWs existed.
   
   It is a good "yarn" but don't ever call it history. It demeans tha valor and honor of thousand of American and allied POWS who suffered and died for your freedom. To even infer it is true is disgraceful



5. Until recently, I thought that this book could be safely ignored as a pathetic, misleading blot on the broad canvas of POW history.
   
   As other reviewers have noted, the Publisher (Angus & Robertson) has added a disclaimer that, "...it has not been possible to prove that the events did occur". Actually, A&R only added this inadequate note (in small type) after an eminent Australian history professor warned them that the book was packed with historical errors and was undoubtedly fiction.
   
   However, right now in 2008, one can see many Internet sites where Douglas Valentine is still presenting his Tacloban fiction as if it was history. Even more worryingly, these websites are being used to vilify the record of a genuine Prisoner of War, presidential candidate John McCain. In response, I'd like Amazon readers to be clear on how much of "Hotel Tacloban" they should accept as historical truth. The answer is ZERO percent.
   
   I'm an Australian. I've worked in the Philippines and personally hiked in the battlefields of New Guinea that Valentine purports to describe. I've researched extensively on POW history and I've also had an academic article published in the USA describing the detection of historical fraud. I'm very familiar with the archival material that can be used to check works such as "Hotel Tacloban".
   
   Other reviewers are correct that this book "reads well". - Yes, exactly like polished fictional prose, not oral history! The landscapes described in Northern Papua are quite wrong. The grassy and swampy coastal plains are portrayed as "mountains" with "rainforest". The vicious siege of the Japanese at Buna in November 1942 is described as some sort of minor patrol action. Valentine obviously didn't bother to properly read the history books that he lists in his bibliography, which accurately describe this country and these battles, where the Australian Army and the US Army fought and died. Valentine's laxity is disrespectful in itself.
   
   Valentine describes his father walking for "days" after captivity (but the Japanese pocket was only a few hundred yards deep!) and then being calmly loaded into a Japanese freighter. No Japanese freighters were anywhere near the Buna siege area in November 1942. The Allies dominated the sky. So every aspect of the purported capture and evacuation of Valentine's father is quite impossible.
   
   It just doesn't ring true that Valentine or his father have ever set foot in Papua. (At one point Valentine lets slip that his father's record says he was in the 375th Harbor Craft Company. This unit actually departed the USA in 1944 and briefly transited through Hollandia in Dutch New Guinea before moving to - surprise, surprise - Tacloban in the Philippines, after the US Leyte landings. In 1944, Valentine Snr. would have been at the legal enlistment age of 18, rather than Valentine's implausible "16" in 1942. (The photo of Valentine's dad on the paperback cover of "Hotel Tacloban" shows him in front of a 1944-pattern US tent, but looking fit and still in possession of the front teeth that the Japanese had supposedly knocked out!)
   
   More dire narrative problems emerge when the book re-locates to the purported Tacloban POW camp in the Philippines and its "interesting" Australian occupants. Unfortunately for Valentine, The Australian War Memorial clearly states that no Australian POWs were held in the Philippines! The names of Valentine's key characters *cannot* be found in Australia's Veterans Affairs database. The US NARA database also shows no released US POW named "Douglas VALENTINE", and no US military POWs liberated anywhere on the island of Leyte. There is no evidence that Valentine Snr. ever experienced captivity in the hands of the Japanese at all.
   
   The depictions of the Australians in the POW camp are laughably divorced from reality. Valentine certainly has never lived with any Australians. Instead we get ridiculous sheep-shagging caricatures! The dialogue sounds wrong. The nicknames sound wrong. The descriptions of life in Australia sound dead wrong.
   
   There is no "Major R. L. Cumyns" (Valentine's murder victim) buried in any Commonwealth war grave anywhere in the world, let alone the Philippines. If Valentine was going to make up a key character name like this, then he shouldn't have chosen one that's so easy to disprove! (And Cumyns sounds like a caricature straight out of the movie "Bridge on the River Kwai".)
   
   Valentine's description of the POW camp itself is also hokey - the local geography sounds wrong; he gets the wet season five months out in timing; and the buildings are too small, with the wrong construction for a former Philippine Army camp. Also, in contrast to every other POW memoir that I've ever read, "Hotel Tacloban" almost ignores the captors, the Japanese. There is no mention of Japanese-language commands or essential camp procedures such as bowing, which were life-and-death matters for POWs. It's pathetic that Valentine couldn't make a better job of creating a fictional POW camp, when his bibliography lists six excellent POW memoirs. He simply can't have read them..
   
   And don't get me started on "The Enforcer" and his devilish five-minute torture sessions! (On the positive side, the wild inaccuracies of this book at least show that Valentine is not a plagiarist!)
   
   Finally, some choice quotes from Douglas Valentine himself:
   
   "... when I write, it is too hard to write the truth..." Frontispiece quotation page xv.
   
   " ...Fooling an audience into believing the most preposterous, the most blatant of fictions, through an elaborate fabrication of plausible half-truths and downright deceptions, was a Digger's highest level of achievement..." p39.
   
   "... at the risk of being called anti-Asiatic or racist by enlightened people, I must confess that for many years I secretly wished that more bombs had been dropped on Japan..." p69.

No comments about Calculated Risk.

5 comments about Napoleon: A Political Life.

1. Many of us in the U.S., Canada & Mexico, trace our genealogy, culture and religion to Europe. Yet, many Gen-Xers and younger cannot name more than 2 or 3 European capitols. We frustrate the Europeans as much as they frustrate us. To know European history is to understand current trans-Atlantic relations. How can we bridge this gap to our cousins across the pond? Steve Englund's "Napoleon" is a great place to start. No period has had a greater impact on European thought than the 1770's through 1815. Englund brings the reader into the eye of the hurricane.
   
   The author assumes that the reader has completed "Intro to European History 101" at the college level. Englund quickly moves the reader from the banal "Who and What" of history to the intriguing "Why?". Englund's facts and research are impeccable, yet he writes in the humanistic style of a novelist. The book portrays Napoleon not as the brooding figure on horseback, but as the driven immigrant-reformer, speaking accented French, who rises to become Emperor. Napoleon is seen as a tyrannical son of Mars, yet also enlightened governmental innovator. Start your own enlightment with Englund's book.



2. The key to understanding this book is its subtitle: A Political Life. Don't make this your first book on Napoleon. The author is standing on the shoulders of giants, and using the volumes of information that came before him as a starting point in the conversation. He doesn't attempt to provide details on Napoleon's military career, his personal life, The French Revolution, or the state of Europe before or after Napoleon. This is a decent book, as long as you understand it is not intended to be "Napoleon: The Compete Story".



3. I came to this book thinking that it would focus entirely on the political dimension of Napoleon's life. This is not the case. Napoleon: A Political Life might exclude the word 'political' from its title and be just as fitting, for Englund spends a great deal of time on Napoleon's relations with Josephine, his brothers, the exiles, etc.. In fact, in the introduction (at the end of the book), Englund states that he almost subtitled the book "Empire of Circumstance."
   
   The great strength of the book is its writing style. Englund really captures the drama of the Little Corsican's life, and he sweeps the reader up in it. All of the politics of Napoleon's life is, as you would expect, well covered, but so is his personal and military life. Never did I feel overburdened with detail, and never was the text wanting for humour.
   
   There is, however, some merit in the argument posted by some of the other reviewers that the book assumes too much in the way of background knowledge. This is not an introduction to Napoleon for the novice. While I would not go so far as to say that you need have already read another book on Napoleon to enjoy Englund's work, you should certainly have a reasonable idea of the political zeitgeist he worked in, particularly the French revolution and the foreign (especially British) reaction to it. Ideally, you should also have taken a course in French at some point in your life (and not completely forgotten it). Englund has a somewhat irritating habit of dropping les mots francais at random, and often without translation (although most of the more important French phrases are translated, most of the minor ones are not). C'est la vie.
   
   One of my favourite parts of the book was the analysis of Napoleon's legacy: his admirers and detractors, whence he is glorified, and whence he is ignored. Englund is the most balanced Napoleonic author I have yet encountered, seeming to genuinely sympathize with (and synthesize from) those who love and those who hate the l'Empereur.
   
   Perhaps the highest compliment for a book, I plan to reread this one.



4. Simply put, an excellent read in content, wisdom and prose.



5. Steven Englund's Napoleon: A Political Life (available in paperback from Harvard) is a book that should satisfy both the interested lay reader and the professional historian.
   
   It will satisfy the lay person because it tells a fascinating story about one of history's most interesting and influential human beings, and it tells it exceptionally well. In the process, the reader will gain insights into how a topflight scholar advances his or her field of knowledge.
   
   It will please academics because Englund presents a nuanced revision of the current myths about Napoleon, who, after two hundred years, still stirs passions among his admirers and detractors as though he were living today. The author focuses on Napoleon's evolving political thought and strategy and how his contemporaries actually responded to him, not how we wished they had responded to him. A virtue is that Englund avoids smoothing out Napoleon's past choices and actions through hindsight: Englund emphasizes that actual history is messy; it doesn't come in tidy packages.
   
   The greatest of men, the very few like Napoleon, leave behind an altered world. Englund draws on Christian Meier's masterful biography of Caesar. He frequently compares Napoleon to Caesar, but Napoleon left behind many more permanent structures in France and across Europe thna Caesar did Rome: law code, a system to govern the localities from the center, the Legion of Honor, and in Paris, monuments and buildings and sewer system and roads.
   
   People who won't like the book will most likely object to two things.
   
   (1) It's not a history primer. Englund assumes the reader is conversant with eighteenth-century history history though not at the level of the professional historian.
   
   (2) Englund devotes almost as much time to wars and battles as he does to other issues, both domestic and international. But, especially when discussing Napoleon and his times, Clausewitz was right: war is an extension ofpolitics.
   
   Another objection may be that Englund doesn't condemn Napoleon roundly enough. He admires him but sees what disaster his overweening ambition led him to in the
   end.
   
   Highly recommended.

5 comments about If the Creek Don't Rise: My Life Out West with the Last Black Widow of the Civil War.

1. After reading "Creek" you'll feel like you know Rita, from the little girl she used to be, to the person she has become as a result of her unique past, beautifully detailed in the pages of her book. To me, that's an indication of a great memoir--that by the end you feel you have taken the journey as well, and that the author is as familiar as a good friend. Lucky for me, I came to know Rita before I even knew her book existed. I have taken four classes with Rita as my teacher, and I'm about to start my fifth. I didn't learn how to write from Rita, but I learned what it meant to write while in her classes, and the improvement in my work after studying with her is obvious. All the attention to detail and care and insight that she poured into her story, she pours into her teaching, and I can't praise her writing or her teaching enough. I'm fortunate to have been exposed to both.



2. In this book, Rita Williams' accounts of her childhood and coming-of-age provide a keenly focused view into the lessons and hardships of poverty and racial discrimination, not to mention puberty itself.
   
   Making these lessons much more compelling than most, the turbulence in Rita's young life plays out against a backdrop of the stunning beauty and cruel harshness of the Colorado Rocky Mountains, all of which is described with magical clarity by Ms. Williams.
   
   Orphaned at a young age, Rita takes the reader along with her as she is flung by wicked fate into an unforgiving life under the stern guardianship of her "Real McCoy" Aunt Daisy, a hunting guide and trapper in the mountains of the Colorado wilderness. Tough as any mountain man, Aunt Daisy is not ready for, nor able to coddle, a small child. Little Rita must toughen up to the mountaineer's lifestyle, or else!
   
   Funny, heart wrenching, and often just plain shocking, Rita Williams' book exudes a fearlessness that few writers ever muster. Powerful, courageous books such as this one often change minds and opinion.
   
   "If The Creek Don't Rise" shines bright light into dark corners of human relationships and emotions - corners that many writers are fearful to even obliquely illuminate, especially when the subject at hand is purely personal.
   
   In the end, this book leaves the reader with a tremendous appreciation for not only the hardships of others, but also with an increased self-awareness.
   
   Ms. Williams' efforts are unique in that her book is not a "mountain wilderness survival story" about a plane crash or stranded, lost campers running out of food or freezing to death. Rather, it is a mountain wilderness survival story that is just as perilous nonetheless. It is the mind and soul, however, at risk of a "starvation and freezing death" in the high mountains.
   
   An amazing tale of tremendous courage and a survival story like no other, this book is a must-read!



3. Rita's book is such a compelling read that I couldn't put it down. She paints a picture through language and draws the reader back in time into her childhood through sometimes painful sometimes uplifting and sometimes amusing memories of growing up. Although our backgrounds are very different, I found myself relating to Rita's struggles and heartbreak and I admire the way she can write about them so eloquently! I have also been blessed in knowing this dynamic women who teaches a memoir writing class at MediaBistro.com in Los Angeles. She is the most gifted instructor I have ever met. I am looking forward to her next class which starts this Spring.



4. All I know is that I did not want this book to end. I was completely immersed into this woman's world. I was moved. I wanted to know what happened next and to hear it in her words. The story is beautiful, painful and inspiring.



5. If the Creek Don't Rise epitomizes for me, what I look for in a book. Her artful articulation of her life not only captures you but leaves you wanting more. Rita's writing goes beyond honest recounting of the past and enters into that world of unspoken details that most people would not have the courage to speak of much less put down on paper. Her willingness to be vulnerable in order to tell her story allowed me to join her on her journey and when I closed my book, all I could think was that I can't wait for her next one to come out.