2 comments about Stateside Soldier : Life in the Women's Army Corps, 1944-1945.

1. This book tells how it was for the first women to serve our country. There is happiness, saddness, and even the bittersweet. The Army had to switch gears to provide the "right" sizes for women, which even now we don't always get the right size, so it's the closest men's size. The fact that the training took place in the Midwest in the winter at a converted US Cav. post was fascinating to learn. To bad Fort Des Moines was not conservered for others to see. This was a wonderful and insightful book to read. I recommend it for anyone interested in women's place in military history.



2. Aileen Kilgore Henderson's "Stateside Soldier: Life in the Women's Army Corps 1944-1945" published by University of South Carolina Press in 2001 is an excellent read.

   Between her family members, friends and herself Aileen acquired many documents to put together this book. Some of it was excerpts from her daily diary. Some were letters that went back and forth between family and friends. But Aileen was able to weave them all together to make an interesting story of what it was like being in the Women's Army Corps during World War II.

   She started with a look at her birth home, family, jobs, and a desire to serve our country while in her early twenties. The Army almost didn't take her because she was underweight but on 3 February 1944 Private Aileen Kilgore was on her way from Palos, Alabama to Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia for Basic Training.

   Aileen made entries to her diary almost every day for the next month. She also found time to write letters home and to her friends. I wondered when she found time to write so much having been in the Army myself but perhaps it was our generation's differences.

   Her interactions with fellow and sister Veterans helped to make the book very interesting. The letters from her friends who were sent overseas helped to show the differences of the training and day to day life between being stateside and overseas. She showed how friendships here and there made the difference to these women and kept them going when they were ready to give up at times.

   Aileen included twenty-four photographs in the book and an Epilogue where she pointed out what became of some of the folks she met so long ago. I would recommend this book for students and adults of all ages. It should be part of our women's studies programs in colleges as well as our military history collections. And it should be included in gift shops of military/Veterans museum as well as on Army installations for all to see. Aileen Kilgore Henderson and the University of South Carolina Press should be proud of this book published in 2001.

No comments about Stars in Khaki: Movie Actors in the Army and the Air Services.

5 comments about "Bravo, Amerikanski!": And Other Stories from World War II.

1. I fully endorse "Bravo Amerikanski" by Ann Stringer (as told to Mark Scott) because it sheds light on a wonderful representative of that great generation of Americans whose young adulthood fell during World War Two. The book vividly brings back to life a gifted young woman who was struck by tragedy and then embarked on a fabulous career at an age when most young people today are only starting out in 'real life.' The story of Ann and Bill Stringer would make a sensational movie. I feel especially close to the story because, like its subjects, I am a journalist and knew of Bill and Ann Stringer before I read the book. I was privileged to cover the 50th anniversary commemorative ceremonies of D-Day on the Normandy beaches. It was there that I first heard of Bill and Ann Stringer and how they covered different stages of the Allied invasion of Western Europe. Their work, telling the American public how its sons were freeing Europe,is vividly recalled in this book. The atmosphere of field journalism in an area of conflict is also extremely well rendered. This book is a must for anyone interested in war reporting and tells a wonderful story about some very special people.



2. I found Ann Stringer's story and recollections, as recorded by Mark Scott, to be exciting, sad, and poignant. She is a reminder to women of today that there were outstanding women like Ann Stringer who were making their own destinies by taking bold steps into unknown territory many decades before the "feminist movement" took hold in this country. Ann was one of a few courageous women who chose to be war correspondents and really put their lives on the line on the front lines of the war. The sad aspect was that she had hoped to do it all with her husband, who was also a war correspondent, but he was killed just outside Paris before she could join him. Even in the midst of her grief, she was determined to carry on, for herself and for his memory.

   I personally experienced in 1985 the phenomenal 40th anniversary reunion of World War II American and Russian soldiers who had linked up at the Elbe River in Germany during the last days of the war so her recollection about being the second war correspondent to reach troops from both armies was particularly exciting. She got there while they were still joyously celebrating the reality that, now that the two great armies had met up, the German soldiers would be surrendering and the war would soon be over. Her true gutziness was revealed with her story about the lengths she went to in order to get back to Paris and be the first to file the story about the historic link-up! Yet her recollections did not end with the conclusion of the war. The book goes on to share her experiences following the war--going into the ravaged cities of Europe, seeing the despair, hopelessness, and hunger of the people throughout. She also covered the Nuremberg Trials for 11 months, witnessing first-hand the Nazi leadership on trial in the Palace of Justice. Finally, I was especially touched by the poignant way in which she reflected towards the end of the book about lessons to be learned: "Wars are cruel to all sides, no matter whether you win or lose. One of the major issues of the Trials was the condemnation of aggressive wars. Another was recognizing how vicious a doctrine of hatred can be. Yet another was that orders are not always enough. Just to obey an order does not absolve you of all guilt. We can still prevent wars by getting to know each other, to realize that "they" have some of the same problems "we" have...." For this and for historical reasons, everyone should read this book.




3. Featuring an introduction by Walter Cronkite, "Bravo, Amerikanski!" And Other Stories From World War II by Ann Stringer (as told to Mark Scott) is an impressive and compelling collection of personal stories (sometime uplifting, sometimes heartbreaking) narrated by Ann Stringer, who lost her journalist husband in Normandy during World War II, and subsequently found the courage to take his place as a reporter. Beautiful, determined, and one hundred percent focused on her duty, Ann Stringer encountered both the horrors of war and the celebrations of freedom, including the liberation of Nazi concentration camps and the linkup of American and Soviet armies at the Elbe River. A highly recommended look at a unique woman's experience as a war correspondent, and the experiences and observations that would change her life forever, "Bravo, Amerikanski!" And Other Stories From World War II is a welcome and valued contribution to the growing library of World War II autobiographies and memoirs.



4. This is the first book I am aware of to set down the extraordinary life and career of Ann Stringer in the detail it deserves. It's all the more compelling because it is autobiography---Stringer tells her story in a clear distinctive voice. Stringer's life is fascinating for its accomplishments and contradictions. She was tough enough to make it as a "newspaper man" under the most difficult conditions---as a war reporter during World War II. In the chauvinist world of war reporting --her reputation as a skilled reporter remarkably transcended her distracting physical beauty, including what one colleague called her "butter-melting eyes." Stringer's life and career seemed to begin and end with the loss of her fellow war-correspondent husband (Bill Stringer) to a badly timed burst of German gunfire somewhere in France. Bill's death prompted Stringer to take up where he left off and become a war reporter in the first place--a brilliant one at that---who stayed on even after the war to cover the Nuremberg Trials. But, her post-war life took incomprehensible and disastrous turns. This reader winced (as one suspects Ann did, herself) when she recounts how she ended up in the 1950s and 60s in Europe "baking meringue pies" for use in her German photographer-husband's pictures. Yet, as Ann Stringer tells her story, you somehow understand why she married a man whose countrymen killed her beloved Bill, stayed with him for several decades, and came gracefully to terms (better than many of us could) with her tragic life-wasting mistakes. There is something quintessentially female about the trajectory of Stringer's life in a really modern sense that makes you want to understand it better. This book provides a chance to begin to do so.



5. Ann Springer was one of the most famous female war correspondents during World War II.

   For over 150 years American war correspondents have been reporting news and events from some of the most dangerous locations in the world. What is noteworthy, however, is up until sixty years ago most of these journalists were men. All of this changed somewhat during World War II when new horizons were opened to female journalists. Women now had secured military accreditation and the right to cover some of the biggest news events of their careers. One of these journalists was Ann Stringer, who in one word can be described as "gutsy," in her pursuit of the truth.

   Bravo Amerikanski and Other Stories From World War II exposes us to a vivid and poignant narration of this courageous woman's experiences as a war correspondent during the Second World War as relayed to Mark Scott. Scott had previously edited a book entitled "Yanks Meet Reds: Recollections of US and Soviets Vets from the Linkup in World War II," and it was during this assignment that Scott had crossed paths with Stringer.

   Stringer presents history as it should be taught in our high schools and universities. Her portrayal of the rotting human flesh of Nordhaussen, her interview with Ilse Koch, the wife of the camp commandant, and who was called the "Bitch of Buchenwald," are all reminders that wars are about people. It is not something in the abstract and history is not only about dates and names of battles. What could be more horrendous than entering the Dachau concentration camp and listening to the German commandant apologize to her because he ran out of fuel to keep the ovens running. To listen to him state that it was his fault they did not have the fuel and it was the fault of the Americans they had run out of fuel is beyond comprehension!
   Her recounting about her personal tragedy loosing her husband, William John Stringer Jr., when he was on assignment in France was extremely moving. However this loss did not prevent Stringer from moving on with her life and as she states: "It was up to me to go on and do the things Bill and I had planned to do together-cover the war." That is exactly what she did in a brilliant and professional manner!

   One of Stringer's most exciting assignments and probably the one she will be most remembered for is her reporting of the link up of the American and Russian soldiers at the Elbe River in Germany. To hear it straight from the "horse's mouth" is an eye opener. We can appreciate her feelings when she tells the reader that her first glimpse of a Russian was "that of a young man running down the street wearing nothing but under shorts and a grey cap." Stringer goes on to tell us that the soldier was dripping wet because he had just swam across the Elbe River to greet her crew and herself. We are then informed that the Elbe was swarming with Russian soldiers stripped to their shorts swimming across. When Springer and her associates were spotted the soldiers all called out "Bravo Amerikanski!" and "Bravo, Comrades!" You can just imagine the scene!

   The last chapter of the book is very appropriately entitled "I'll Be Seeing You." These were the last words written to Stringer by her first husband prior to his death. Even after two subsequent marriages, she always had a soft spot in her heart for her first husband who she never forgot and hoped to meet one day in the hereafter. We also are reminded that war is cruel to all sides, no matter whether you win or lose. We should try and learn from history in order that past tragedies are not repeated. Hatred has no place in the world.

   Ann Stringer never considered herself a crusader for women's liberation and one of her final comments in her book was "I'm just a person." Ann died on November 7th, 1990. Perhaps one day we will view the Ann Stringer story on the silver screen?

   Norm Goldman (...)

5 comments about Joan of Arc (Penguin Lives).

1. The Penguin Lives series are not traditional biographies. They are short essays on the meanings and mysteries of a person's life, at the time they lived and in the present for us. They are for people (like me) who would not, could not read an 900 page book containing every detail of Joan's life, times and trial. There are plenty of those big biographies out there if you need them. But for people who want a little thoughtful insight on how a teenage girl in 1431 was able to accomplish the unheard of, unprecedented things she did, this book is perfect. This is a book I will always keep and reread.



2. It's a bad mistake to trust Mary Gordon to tell the objective truth about anything. This is a woman who sneers at democracy and bashes men for a living. Predictably, she reinvents Joan of Arc in her own image. That is to say, she imagines Joan as a sex-hating, social climbing fascist who despises her own humble origins and drools over the aristocracy.
   
   Don't believe me? Check out the interminable passage about how Joan never menstruated. That's Mary Gordon's idea of "purity."
   
   Joan's real purity came from caring about her family, her friends, and her country, and giving her life for them. But Mary Gordon dismisses Joan's family with a sneer, saying they were "one more thing she had to escape from." Tells you a lot about Mary Gordon's feelings about the old neighborhood (The Irish are so frightfully vulgar in Queens, my dear.) Tells you nothing about Joan of Arc.
   
   Then there's the problem of men. Common sense tells you that Joan of Arc got along well with soldiers, that she brought out the best in them simply by believing that even the roughest character was capable of compassion and decency. Boy oh boy, is that beyond Mary Gordon's comprehension! Men are pigs, you see, and they betrayed Joan of Arc. Uh, yeah. Only the amazing thing is that they ever followed her in the first place! Joan worked miracles because she believed in men.
   
   Mary Gordon ought to try it sometime.



3. In this book, Mary Gordon brings Joan's story to life. I can see that she really understands the character of Joan but does more than just tell her story. She explores the mystery that people saw in Joan. Such as the contradictions and mysterious desires that propelled her from obscurity to glory. I began to understand what drove Joan to do all the magnificent things she did. Mary Gordon tells this story in a way that makes me feel like she actually knew Joan and her feelings. She uncovers those feelings and created a better understanding of the mystery of The Maid of Lorraine.
   
   I have never heard the story of Joan's life depicted in such a descriptive manner. Mary Gordon told Joan's story and makes it some what adventurous. I learned a lot from this book but there were some things that could have improved. I think she should have made it more suspenseful and should have added more action. She had quotes and really didn't create it in a story form. It would have enjoyed this book more if these qualities would have been added. But over all it was a heart warming, emotional story.
   Kayla,lake havasu city,15



4. Even being a brief book, the writer accomplished the hard task of turning Joan's life into a sometimes boring narrative. Anyway, if you're looking to start knowing the basics, this is a good book to start.
   
   The chpater at the end where the writer spent time writing about dramatization in books and movies about Joan's life is utter useless, in my opinion is totally desnecessary and the worst part of hte book.
   
   Also, do not expect detailed accounts of the battles.



5. La Pucelle is not well served here. This is a pretty mediocre, superficial treatment of Joan's life. Gordon brings a novelist's flair to what amounts to a somewhat stream-of-consciousness extended essay. Gordon likes Shaw's play, SAINT JOAN, and you can see how Shaw's view of Joan's voices/religious identity clearly shaped Gordon's perspective. Stick with Regine Pernoud's various books on Joan, which are superior in every aspect to this flawed offering.

5 comments about Ambrose Bierce: Alone in Bad Company.

1. This book gives insight into one of the American literary greats. There are times that the book drags, but I think this is due as much to the author as to the fact that some moments in Bierce's life are so interesting that when you read about the "average" moments in his life, you are left, well , bored. This is a good book for a Bierce fan or someone that would like to learn about an American writer who, deservedly, lived in the shadow of Twain.



2. "Bitter Bierce" they called him because of his scathing sarcasm. After the Civil War, in which he fought valiantly for four years, he went to San Francisco and began writing for the Hearst newspapers. Satire was his game. He wrote a couple of decent short stories ("Chickamauga" and "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"), THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY, and that's about it (other books, mainly short story and poetry collections, have been forgotten, in some cases unfairly so). His wit, as revealed in the DICTIONARY is clever, but at times sophomoric. Influenced by Poe, many of his stories deal with the supernatural and are laced with horror. He disappeared in Mexico in 1913 and was never seen again. Speculation, from suicide to fighting for Pancho Villa, has been rampant ever since. Morris does a good job relating the events of Bierce's strange life, who must have been a very difficult man to know.



3. I am perfectly aware that to say that Ambrose Bierce was the most original, provocative and fascinating of all American writers (not to say the most brilliant of all) is like preaching in the desert. It is probably going to cost me a lot of negative feedback to say what I'm going to say, so I won't extend myself more than what it is absolutely necessary in order to speak my mind.
   
   The main reason for me to write this review is that this laughable biography by Roy Morris is so flagrantly detrimental on Bierce's accomplishments that I personally didn't want to lose the opportunity to advise you against reading such a lot of blather. The author even puts an awful novel like "The Red Badge of Courage" above Bierce's war stories (hilarious, isn't it?). After that, what else can be said about this biographer's ineptitude? Let's draw a veil over it and forget it.
   
   Anyone wishing to know something about the skilled artistry and posterior influence of the Ohio writer would be better looking for another book written by someone who had actually grasped Bierce's significance. But the best thing to do is reading Bierce's stories on your own and make up your mind about them instead of losing your time with the prejudices and lack of perspective of others.
   
   After reading some passages of this book, I reassure myself in my opinion that literary critics are, well, funny...
   
   In a world where mediocrity runs rampant and where authors like Mark Twain and the hideous Henry James have always been praised, it is difficult that really worthy authors like Bierce can find the recognition they deserve. But, perhaps, it is better that way, I don't know.
   
   What I know for sure (because I've seen it) is that, when a genius is born, all nefarious souls tend to ally themselves against it. Anyway, how could a writer like Bierce be enjoyed by a majority? It's impossible.
   
   Well, I don't think this review is gonna get anywhere, so I'd better stop here. Thank you for your reading.
   
   Note- sorry for any bad grammar on my part. I don't usually write in the language of the "Empire".



4. Conventional wisdom and history books have it that Ambrose Bierce died in Mexico during the Revolution. But Morris, in this in-depth biography, offers a fairly plausible alternative. (Sorry, not giving the store away as part of the review; you're going to have to get your hands on this book.)
   
   Much of the rest of the speculation in which Morris engages is psychological. He first analyses Bierce's childhood and parents, then takes note of his Civil War head wound, and wonders just how much the two of these things combined to contribute to the Ambrose Bierce we know today.
   
   That said, while not denying either childhood or adult causes of personality development -- or personality change -- I give more credence to genetic causes, i.e., the ideas of evolutionary psychology, properly applied.
   
   I find it likely that Bierce was pretty much born with tendencies toward the character he later exhibited. His upbringing and his war wound may have intensified it, but I think he came by much of his cynicism naturally. Life events probably added the dollop of churlishness to it.
   
   I teeter on a rating and end up at 4 stars. If I were to fine tune, it would probably be about 3 2/3 stars. The psycho-speculation is interesting, but in addition to being incomplete, if not somewhat wrong, too much of a focus on it means less focus on historical biography or on literary analysis.



5. Morris' biography of Bierce is thorough and has a lot of insight, but one thing that irritates is the implication that Bierce is not a "major" writer. There's even a a blurb on the book jacket from some critic at the Washington Post referring to him as a "lesser" writer.
   
   Are you kidding? Bierce wrote at least four or five of the greatest short stories in American literature. He pioneered the idea of showing readers that they weren't paying attention; he explored near-death experience masterfully in "Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"--as well as delivering a scathing criticism of war; he wrote the most riveting Civil War story of all time, "Chickamauga," and he inspired dozens of modern and postmodern writers--Hemingway through Joseph Heller.
   
   Yes, Bierce's work was inconsistent. But so was Twain's, Crane's, and the work of dozens of other "major" writers.
   
   The best Bierce criticism is Richard O'Connor's _Ambrose Bierce: A Biography_, published in 1967. If you're interested in Bierce, read that one first.

1 comments about From Corunna to Waterloo: The Letters and Journals of Two Napoleonic Hussars, 1801-1816.

1. Gareth Glover's FROM CORUNNA TO WATERLOO provides the letters and journals of two Napoleonic Hussars from 1801-1816 and is also a top pick for any specialty library emphasizing Napoleonic history and battles. Any studying the era in depth will find these writings from participants who wrote home regularly and described both events and their feelings to be most enlightening and essential for capturing the conflicts and sentiments of the times.

2 comments about Doctor Quintard, Chaplain C.S.A. and Second Bishop of Tennessee: The Memoir and Civil War Diary of Charles Todd Quintard.

1. A smorgastborg of material - a memoir, a short diary, generous identifying footnotes, a lengthy bibliography, a name index - present the war and post-war experiences of Charles Todd Quintard. Read this for a sense of the fervent religious climate of the times and one of the great men who nurtured it.



2. I truly enjoyed this book. Is the personal narrative of rev. Charles Todd Quintard who fought for the Confederacy in the Army of Tennessee. Dr. Quintard had several good uses in the army: one is that he was a doctor that had practiced medicine, another is that he was a fine chaplain. He had some personal friendship with some of the Confederate generals. One night he and General Kirby Smith went together to a church. They both knelt and prayed that the war would soon come to an end. These are stories that I will never forget. Dr. Quintard published a little devotional book called "Balm For The Weary and The Wounded". He sent this little booklet out to the men in the Army of Tennessee. Sam R. Watkins who wrote "Co. Aytch" praised Quintard highly for helping to lift the spirits of the men. Quintard ran several Confederate army hospitals.
   This book is great reading for fun and information.

No comments about An Average American Army Officer: An Autobiography.

3 comments about Stars in the Corps: Movie Actors in the United States Marines.

1. Thank you for making my father John R. Post so happy to have someone care about something that consumed a great deal of his young life. He was so thrilled to receive your book and share it with me and all his military friends. It was a time to be remembered - for the friendship - not the death. And he may be different but he remembers every name of every person he spent time with during WWII and the Korean Conflict. Thank you for acknowledging his memory and caring about his fellow man. Thank you.



2. This badly written book about men who served their country well will disappoint those who care about the language as well as those looking for depth in the reporting of what 28 Americans who happened to be associated with the entertainment industry did when they were in the U.S. Marine Corps.

   That is not to say that it is not worth reading, however. It's a quick read, and the reader will recognize the cotton candy style of the motion picture press release. But the surprises will keep you going, as you discover that Ed McMahon was such a good pilot of the Vought Corsair (the airplane that Pappy Boyington flew) that he became an instructor in World War II. When he finally flew in combat, it was in unarmed Cessna 180s flying observation over Korea -- extremely hazardous duty. You will also find out how Lee Marvin "got his ass shot off" in the World War II invasion of Saipan -- literally.

   One thing any reader will recognize is the almost universal feeling on the part of the subjects that the "Corps made a man out of me" and the emptiness most of them felt when no longer a part of Corps.

   In short, it's worth the money just for fun, but history it ain't. It's a nice little book about a few good men.




3. STARS IN THE CORPS. is a most entertaining and informative book. Well written and researched, it deals with the military service of a number of movie stars that served in the Corps through America's wars. Among the stars profiled, readers will find the opening chapter particularly interesting, since it relates the life and service of a much-decorated Vietnam Marine, Dale Dye. In case the name is not familiar, he was the military advisor for the movies, PLATOON, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, AND THE THIN RED LINE. He has also acted in a number of movies and television specials. The chapter about Lee Marvin is riveting. In every sense of the word he was a Marine throughout his life. His burial marker at Arlington reads, LEE MARVIN, PFC, U. S. MARINE CORPS. Many of the subjects and stories will surprise readers. What I liked about the entire read was the avoidance of tabloid innuendo. True to the theme set by authors Wise and Rehill in STARS IN BLUE, they focus on the service contributions of these men, which are often unknown to the American public.

1 comments about Laugh, Cry and Remember: The Journal of G.I. Lady.

1. This book opened my eyes to the experiences of women who served in the Army (and the other service branches) during World War II. I found out they were not all nurses or "donut dollies" but serious and dedicated women who left the safety of their homes to "join up". Although Ms. Pollard chose to use language more common during the Second World War, I forgave her as I read because the stories were enlightening.For example, I had no idea how other women saw these soldiers in uniform. The responses were often jealousy and fear that the women in the Army were out to take other women's husbands away from them!

   Ms. Pollard reflects on the variety of jobs the women took on while the men went to fight; everything from office work to ferrying servicemen into battle. The amazing thing was that after the military women came home, they donned their kitchen aprons and went right back to housekeeping and bringing up their children with litle or no thought that they had broken through much of the sex bias about women performing "mens work". Some of these "powerful" women themselves failed to connect that they had become role models for their children and grandchildren.

   Ms. Pollard also reflects on the "shell shocked" soldiers she saw and worked with at the end of the war. It is gut wrenching.

   I highly recommend this book as a means to learn about roles women have played in our contemporary history; a subject LEFT OUT by most teachers in high school and college these days.