5 comments about My Bondage and My Freedom (Penguin Classics).

1. Standing in line at the Lincoln Memorial, a book beckoned to me that I previously hadn't seen before. The face of Frederick Douglas grabbed my attention; a man that I've respected for many years, encountering him mainly through my study of Abraham Lincoln. On the spur of the moment, I snatched up a copy of "My Bondage and My Freedom", and within a few days, my admiration in Frederick Douglass was transformed from interest to awe.

   Frederick Douglass orginially penned his book as a response to people's accusations that someone as articulate and composed as he couldn't possibly be a former slave. With that goal in mind, Douglass wrote his memoirs, in a straight forward, powerful way. In the book, he painfully and honestly documents the path his early life took; the memories of being owned, how slaves coped during these times, and how he managed to pull himself out of it all.

   While Douglass' life in itself is amazing, (as he describes the amazing process he undertook to learn how to read), what amazed me even more are Douglass' discourses that he sprinkles through the book, discussing relevant issues during the time. In one instance, he addresses the concern about why slaves simply didn't run away from their oppressive situations. It's almost as if you can actually hear the people talking to Douglass and he responding to them.

   This book does not only tell the tale of a truly amazing American, but gives us a unique insight to the times. This book should be required reading in every high school in this country.




2. Having read a biography of Douglass many years ago, I thought I knew his story. Hearing through his pen was an entirely different matter. What a master of the language and insighful set of observations on human nature.
   
   I am a man of many words, but words fail me in my endorsement of this book. The letter to his former master in the appendix is worth the price of the book by itself.



3. Douglass's second, and lengthier, narrative fills in many of the gaps left in his first autobiography: we learn about his mother, his siblings, and more details about his psychological transformation from brute to man. It's quite insightful, as Douglass is careful to relate each of his personal experiences to the innate evil of the peculiar instituition, for both the slave and the slave holder.



4. THIS BOOK IS POWERFUL, ITS SHOCKING, AND IT IS ASPIRING. THERE IS NOTHING ON CHANNEL 11 THAT BRINGS THE HONEST, INSIGHTFUL, VERY REAL ACCOUNT THAT MR.DOUGLASS DOES IN HIS BOOK. FROM SLAVE TO FREE-MAN, THIS IS TRUELY AN AMERICAN SUCCESS. SKIP THE INTRO, AND JUMP INTO IT.



5. The item arrived on time and this web site was the ONLY place I could find this book as my daughter needed it for her English class at school!
   Amazon really came through for me when we couldn't find the book anywhere else. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

5 comments about A Diary From Dixie.

1. This primary source document is one of the best windows we have into southern society during the American Civil War. Mary Chestnut was a southern aristocrat, married to the man who was the first to resign his seat in the US Senate before the war. She knew many prominent Confederate leaders well--Jefferson Davis, John Bell Hood, and Wade Hampton among them--and was acquainted with nearly all of the major players in the war (she even spent several occasions in the company of Robert E. Lee and Joseph Johnston). Because she knew so many people, she was in a position to cast a very revealing light on the war from the southern point of view.
   
   Besides knowing so many influential leaders, Mary Chestnut also lived in both Confederate capitals--Montgomery, Alabama and Richmond, Virginia--while they were the government seats. Her husband's plantation was in South Carolina, and in fact her home in Columbia, South Carolina lay right in the path of Sherman's destructive march through the South. As such, Chestnut is poised to offer very interesting commentary on the fire that burned much of that city. Mary and her husband gave their all to the Confederacy, and lost much of what they had because of the Civil War.
   
   Several things in this journal are unique and worthy of mention. First, Chestnut and her friends are living the high life for much of the war, having parties, dinners, and luncheons and more-or-less living it up, even when the Yankees are approaching Richmond. They live comfortable lives, and, though Mary has a very insightful perspective into the suffering of her soldiers, she often spends as much time complaining about some minor inconvenience (such as being without her maid for a week) as she does deploring the sorry state of the starved and ill-clothed soldiers. Mary does what she can, and helps in many ways, but she is not willing to give up her parties, even when her husband repeatedly begs her too.
   
   This diary also provides a unique view of slavery. A staunch abolitionist, Chestnut hated slavery less for the cruel treatment of the slaves than for the insolent behavior of many of them. Her husband's slaves were well taken care of, and did less work than they consumed in goods. Mary recounts many horrific tales of what happened when the slaves were set free--a story of a white family going along a road and picking up a wagonload of Negro infants which had been abandoned by parents enjoying their freedom, for example. She never questions that slavery is wrong, but she does argue that Harriet Beecher Stowe's account of slavery was the exception, not the rule. This is an interesting perspective, whatever the truth of it.
   
   All in all, this is a great diary, and a splendid resource. Thank goodness this book has been reissued. The edition edited by Ben Ames Williams contained unsatisfactory notes, including some in which Williams shamelessly engaged in self-promotion of his novel. This book is indispensable for anyone looking for primary accounts of the human aspect of the war between the states.



2. This book deserves 5 stars for educational value alone. While it does have its slow points, I can say that I have learned more about antebellum culture and Southern war perspective from this book than any other I have read up to this point. The book gives us a glimpse into the mindsets of a demographic of the Southern population we can rarely find anywhere else, and it's incredible to believe that this work was almost thrown into the fire for fear of capture when McClellan's forces dwelt a mere six miles from Richmond's door in early 1862.



3. Mary Chesnut's diary of life in the South during the American Civil War is possibly the best of all American diaries. You could spend weeks making your way through the labyrinth of events -- trivial and important -- and personalities found in the diary.
   
   This edition of the diary is superseded by a better one: "Mary Chesnut's Civil War" edited by C. Vann Woodward which won a Pulitzer Prize for History in 1982. Woodward's edition offers a more complete text and is heavily footnoted with explanatory material. The text in Woodward includes many interesting passages excluded from "A Diary from Dixie" because of limitations of space and because some of them reflected unfavorably on the South and Southerners.
   
   One virtue of this edition is a fine foreword about the diary by literary critic Edmund Wilson, but Wilson's foreword can also be read in his book "Patriotic Gore." I recommend you read Woodward's "Mary Chesnut's Civil War" instead of this book.
   
   Smallchief



4. C-Span did a series called "American Writers" in 2001 and although I consider myself well read it was the first time I had ever heard of Mary Chesnut.
   
   This story of the Civil War, told from the perspective of the civilians at home, was a real eye opener. Mary Chesnut, the wife of a Confederate general, was well off, but even Mary and the ladies in her circle couldn't get shoes to replace their worn ones and could only afford the outrageous prices for food because they had money. One can only imagine the suffering of those less fortunate. Life for civilians was severe and the news from the front, often heartbreaking, added to their woes. This is a unique first person account of the Civil War.
   
   I remember reading that the author of "Gone With the Wind", Margaret Mitchell, did about five years of research before she actually started writing her book. I feel it is highly likely that she read Mary Chesnut's book as part of that research.



5. Mary Chestnut's diary received great exposure as a result of Ken Burns' documentary on PBS. It is well worth reading because 90% of the history we read of the American Civil War focuses on the military campaigns and the politics. Ms. Chestnut tells us more about the social impact of the war than we get from most authors. On top of that, she was a highly intelligent woman who was writing things in confidence that she would be unlikely to say outloud. She had a unique window into the workings of southern society and Confederate politics and she was completely honest in her evaluations. What we get here are very carefully worded opinions that no self-respecting southerner would have dared to admit in 1863. On the topic of slavery, Ms. Chestnut declares, "Ours is a monstrous system." Amid newspaper reports blasting Union General Grant for his brutal tactics and lack of finesse, Ms. Chestnut observes, "He has the disagreeable habit of not retreating before our irresistable veterans." All in all, hers is one of the most honest and well-written accounts of civilian life in the south during the Civil War.

5 comments about Memoirs of an Infantry Officer.

1. Siegfreid Sassoon's wonderful war memoir is thinly disguised as the story of George Sherston. Based solely on Sassoon's life in the trenches of WWI, it recounts the horror and scale of carnage that occurred. More importantly it shows the emotionally scars that the survivors carried with them as a result of exposure.

   Sherston (Sassoon) was a rather spoiled and pampered young upper class Englishman. The war changed all that. Confronted with death, destruction and idiotic leadership from the High Command you sense the inner turmoil of Sherston.

   Relieved when he is not involved with the fighting he is driven by guilt over the loss of the soldiers in his battalion. Consequently when his platoon is on the line he takes great risks in reconaissance of the German positions.

   The effects of non-stop total war, stupid leadership and the complete contrast between England and the trenches (only a few hundred miles apart) is staggering to Sassoon. Sassoon becomes anti-war and considers becoming an objector, but his obvious connection to his comrades and loyalty to them wins out in the end. He hates the war but won't abandon his comrades in the field.

   This is a great war memoir written by a poet who survived and was changed for life by his experiences in it.




2. Siegfried Sassons' "Memoirs of an Infantry Officer" is a first-hand account of life at the front line during World War 1. This is not a just a historical document or diary however. Sassoon writes via an alter-ego called George. In real life, Sassoon was an infantry officer who fought at the front, but eventually grew suspicious of the reasons for the continuation of World War 1, and as such became a dissenter. This book may be fiction, but it is based on fact and it gives an impressive account of what life must have been like in those trenches, nearly a hundred years ago. Sassoon's incredible ability with words paints a much more vivid picture than any war movie will ever provide.

   George was a middle-class officer who had the luxury of a university education and was an avid reader of classic English literature. He juxtaposes the themes and ideas in this romantic poetry with the realities of life at the front to great effect. Although a tad repetitive in it's ideas (perhaps to get the point across clearly), this book is rewarding and still relevant this whole century later. As one character in the book says, "In war-time the word patriotism means suppression of truth" .




3. Terrific book that sounded a bit autobiographical. Sassoon, of course, was a war hero on the battle of the Somme, decorated twice for bravery.
   
   The book reads lyrically and is convey's nicely the daily life of soldiers moving back and forth from the front fighting trenches to the rear area of the battle field. He also does a great job portraying the strangeness and inner conflict of being back in British society (while recovering from illness) with people who know nothing of the war or its cost to the participants.
   
   A Brit's version of "All Quiet ..."



4. Continuing tale of the Cambridge-educated English Officer living the hell of warfare on the Western Front: replete with adoring batman, blustering colonel Blimps, out of control colonials (Australians and Canadians), journeys to England on home leave to meet misinformed civilians. Sasson has a style that waxes between light and lyrical, cynical and dark and starkly realistic. It is reminiscent of Graves but less dark than Blunden.
   
   This is a tale of the human mind (an upper crust mind) that makes the journey from old world to that of the lost generation -- but Sassoon never loses himself. It shows that the mind-set was already there capable of dissecting and throwing away the old world view tradition. With capable honesty Sassoon relates the contradictions in life, army and mind set of the pre-war generation. He still takes advantage of the liesure of the educated class; his batman pours his tea, he still sees the colonials as slightly quaint and backwards (especially the Australians), still finds refuge among his educated Cambridge intellectuals -- this is no tale of class struggle.
   
   This book can read as part of his trilogy lifestyle or on its own. It has many haunting vignettes and is perhaps one of the top 5 WWI memoirs. Highly recommended.



5. While perhaps best known for his poetry written during WWI, Siegfried Sassoon was a very talented wordsmith in general, a trait that is demonstrated in his second semi-fictionalized autobiography, "Memoirs of an Infantry Officer". Sassoon chose to fictionalize his accounts of his life, an odd technique that allows him to distance himself from these experiences as he intimately describes the raw emotion and response behind them. In his three memoirs he is George Sherston, a thinly veiled version of himself, who thinnly veils the real-life characters he encountered during these times.
   
   Readers are automatically flung into Sassoon's war experience, from the disjointed and fantastical training, to the brutal reality of life in the trenches. Sassoon describes these experiences in vivid detail, the sheer misery of trench warfare, the almost callous attitude toward the dead on both sides, and the surreal life led by those back home. Sassoon, nicknamed "Mad Jack" for his stubborness and seemingly sheer lunacy at times, was awfully lucky during his battle campaigns. He was wounded a few times, always sent back home to England to recuperate, and almost happy to return to the war.
   
   However, after one session as an invalid, Sassoon begins to recognize that the war may not be all it's cracked up to be, that those in power are not telling the truth about their war aims, and that he may just be a lowly pawn in a game he doesn't want to play. Towards the end of his narrative, Sassoon tells of his decision to speak out against the war, even if it meant being court martialed. This act, filtered with courage and fear, is achingly portrayed as an act both necessary and questionable: as Sassoon places himself in danger, he questions his true beliefs in the matter. This account ends just as Sassoon enters the hospital in Scotland, avoiding court martial with a diagnosis of shell shock, 'lucky' as usual.
   
   "Memoirs of an Infantry Officer" is a vividly descriptive account of life in the trenches during WWI. Sassoon is a gifted storyteller, who can make even the direst settings come to life. He offers a unique insight into the soldier poets who first questioned whether or not war was such a noble and glorious pursuit and if the sacrifice of lives was worth the price in the end. While a little slow at times, the last quarter of the narrative which details Sassoon's questioning of the war, is a brilliantly written firsthand look at how a too little celebrated writer finally found his voice.

5 comments about Blue-Eyed Child of Fortune: The Civil War Letters of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw.

1. Robert Gould Shaw's letters home are a very realistic look of the Civil War battles by a unique individual with many perspectives. The brutality of battle along with the emotional turmoil from such a young officer bring the war to life. The authors have given us a true picture of a brave officer and the war. As you read the letters of Shaw you want to pull the blankets closer on the cold winter nights he spent in the field. You can share the suffering along with Shaw at the loss of friends. The courage and love of family and devotion of country are evident throughout his premature adult life. God bless the 54th and may Robert Gould Shaw and all that served with him and under him never be forgotten.



2. Russell Duncan's compendium of letters both exalts and puzzles.The job of editing the letters and setting them in the context of war, family ties, friendships, etc. is thorough and, for the most part, makes them accessible. Let's not forget, though, that the editor omitted some letters that don't support his main thesis: that Col. Shaw was a rich young pleasure-lover who fought to get back to his privileged existence, never changing this outlook throughout the war; he "never fully understood nor dedicated himself" to the cause of Black freedom (pp.1-2). So here we are presented with a young man raised by abolitionists who went to all the hazards of preparing and leading something new, a black regiment, before dying in the middle of it, without understanding what he was about, or dedicating himself to it. It's fashionable to "debunk" the heros of yore, but even those letters we have tell us otherwise, and Duncan reverses his appraisal, back and forth, several times. We should also beware of measuring citizens of other times against a modern baseline on classism, racism, etc. Apart from these problems, found in the introduction and some footnotes, the book lets Shaw speak for himself (he does it eloquently and enjoyably) and the reader can draw his/her own conclusion on ideas, events, and character development.



3. it's must have book I love this book



4. If, like me, you have seen the film "Glory", where Matthew Broderick plays Col. Robert Gould Shaw, white commander of the black 54th Massachusetts Regiment during the Civil War, you will see only a brief a glimpse of who Shaw was in his short life. Broderick does a masterful job of capturing some of Shaw's personality, but if you want to get inside this young man's head and find out who he really was, I highly recommend reading the book, "Blue Eyed Child of Fortune", ed. by Russell Duncan.
   
   This collection of Shaw's letters shows a far more complex and conflicted young man than Broderick was given a chance to play. While his parents burned with the abolitionist spirit of Boston's intellectual elite, Shaw struggled with his own prejudices and his own self doubts throughout his short life. Never an exemplary student, he dropped out of Harvard to work in his uncle's New York firm, but rapidly found the work boring and unsuited to him. Struggling to find his place in the world, the Civil War came along and gave him a sense of purpose and direction.
   
   Enlisting first in the 7th New York Guards, he served until his enlistment was up, and then joined the 2nd Massachusetts, gaining position as an officer. He "saw the elephant" at Winchester, Antietam and Cedar Mountain, was slightly wounded in two of those engagements, and found out first hand about the horrors of war. During winter camp in 1862-63, his father visited with word that Shaw had been tapped by Massachusetts Governor John Albion Andrew to command a new black regiment. At first, Shaw refused this offer on the basis that he felt a strong bond with the men he had fought and bled with, but then changed his mind and accepted the position of Colonel of the 54th Massachusetts.
   
   Returning home to Boston to take command of his new regiment, he was deeply conflicted over whether these men would pan out to be good soldiers, but as time wore on and they proved their worth, Shaw's respect for his men grew, as did their respect for their commanding officer. After three months training, they left for duty in South Carolina after a grand parade down Boston streets. Shaw chafed for some action for his men, and the first that they saw was the tragic raid and burning of Darien, Georgia under the command of Kansas jayhawker Col. James Montgomery. Shaw was outraged at this action and very nearly refused his orders from his commanding officer, but reluctantly had to obey and ask his men to do what he felt was utterly immoral and against the codes of war. He would write letters of protest to his father and to others.
   
   Eventually, in his quest for real action for his men, they were assigned a diversionary action on James Island to allow Union troops to land on nearby Morris Island for a planned assault on Fort Wagner a few days later. Sustaining light casualties in a skirmish, Shaw was impressed that his men were indeed up to snuff as soldiers, and so, a few days later, after a long exhausting march in a storm to Morris Island during which they got no rest, they were assigned to the lead attack column on Fort Wagner on the evening of July 18, 1863.
   
   Sadly, Union intelligence on Ft. Wagner was badly flawed. It was originally thought that the fort held a complement of only 300 men and that after days of relentless shelling by the Union navies, that the fort would be softened up enough to withstand a frontal Union assault. However, most of Wagner's nearly 1500 men were in a massive bombproof riding out the shelling, and so, when the Union assault began with the 54th leading the attack column, they took the heaviest casualties, including the young Col. Shaw, who foresaw his own demise while speaking to Lt. Col. Edward "Ned" Hallowell, his second-in-command, while on a steamer on the way to their assignment: "If I could only live a few weeks longer with my wife, and be at home a little while, I might die happy, but it cannot be. I do not believe I will live through our next fight."
   
   Rather unfortunately, Shaw was right. He was killed upon reaching the parapets of Wagner, a bullet through his heart killing him instantly. His body was stripped and thrown into a common grave with his men, and his father asked, when the Union finally took the fort a few months later when it was abandoned by the Confederates, that his body be left there with his men. Shaw's burial spot now lies somewhere under the Atlantic Ocean, the island having eroded significantly in the past 140 years since Shaw's demise and burial there.
   
   This book will give you a great insight into a very conflicted, complicated and yet reluctantly heroic young man who was just coming into his own at the time of his tragic death. I am sure that he would have shunned the limelight had he survived the war to live to old age and would have been content to live life with his beloved Annie, to whom he was married a mere two months before his death. Annie would never remarry and lived the rest of her life as his widow, dying in 1907. The war would doubtless have made Shaw and given him the potential to focus his life and go on to great things had he lived to do so. Having lived so much of his young life with such rebellion against his mother's domineering apron strings and not quite sure what he wanted out of life, the war gave Shaw a brief opportunity to find out what it was he was made of. In so doing, he achieved the one thing he never dreamed of, immortality.
   
   Read this book if you are eager to know the "real" Shaw. Letting him speak for himself is the best way to know this fascinating man who died so tragically young at the peak of his life. Follow it up with "Where Death and Glory Meet", Russell Duncan's excellent biography of Shaw. By the time you finish these two books, you will feel as if you know Shaw quite well. If you want to know a few of his men, read "A Brave Black Regiment" by Capt. Luis Emilio, a regimental history of the 54th, "On the Altar of Freedom" by Cpl. James Henry Gooding, a black soldier in the 54th, and "A Voice of Thunder", the letters of Sgt. George E. Stephens, another black soldier in the 54th. I just hope that more letters and diaries from this regiment surface and are published someday. Doubtless there are more hiding in attics and other unknown places.
   
   This book comes highly recommended for good Civil War reading of a primary source, along with the other books mentioned that are by Shaw's soldiers. Together, they beat any historian's account of this historic regiment. Read them all if you are interested in Civil War or black history.



5. After viewing the movie Glory for many years I came across this book and purchased it immediately. Robert Gould Shaw grew up in an influencial home which had amazing political and social connections with the abolitionist movement. His words preserved from the past through today and gives us insight on what he was thinking about after fighting at Antietam as well as his feelings about his role and service for this nation.
   
   A must for any civil war reenactor or student of the American Civil War.

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 Silent Running: My Years on a World War II Attack Submarine.

1. This could have easily been a dull and difficult read, but Calvert was not a dull man. To the contrary, this story puts you right in the action. Just like the AAF's B-24 Liberator bombers, the naval subs were often just as dangerous to our soldiers as the enemy was. Especially at the beginning of their service, Calvert shares how the Jack had many problems with its engines, at one point nearly getting stranded with no operable engines. On top of that, they had to endure intense depth charging. With all of this action, it's hard to relax - even while in the comfort of an armchair.

   More than just a military tale, however; Silent Running has a real human side. Calvert takes the reader deep into his personality, allowing us to share in his fear and his courage. It is also a story of love and a sailor's struggle to stay faithful to his wife while facing death in a cruel war far from home. As he prevails over all, we are shown the tremendous character and tenacity of the men and women that fought and won the "Greatest War".

   If you like this book, you must rent/buy/watch Das Boot (The Boat) directed by Wolfgang Petersen. Although, it is told from the perspective of the German submarine crew, it is a great aid to visualizing the experience of 1930-40's submarine warfare conditions and technology. It is, also, considered one of the greatest WWII movies made to date.




2. This memoir is particularly well-written. It accomplishes the expected by displaying day-to-day life on a US submarine in WWII, but it does more by really capturing the voice of an innocent young man who still has a lot to learn about the world.
   
   Calvert went on to quite a distinguished career in the Navy, but this book never hints at that, instead it paints a portrait of a very specific period of time in the author's life and doesn't bog the reader down with too much 20/20 hindsight and reflections, instead relaying the feeling of being in your early 20s and being involved in one of the highest-stakes contests ever fought in human history.
   
   If you like memoirs, history, or WWII, this is a very well-told story that will appeal to you.



3. Great read.
   
   As the only prior reviewer who failed to give it five stars noted , it is written in a very straightforward style. Most of the discussions regarding emotions are off the boat. It is not Tom Clancey but rather an account of real heros, fighting an extremely dangerous war, 8,000 miles from home and often hundreds of miles from any friendly ship.
   
   I found the book captivating but it does require the reader to put himself into the account rather than having the book reach out to the reader with pages of descriptions of fear soaked sweat dripping from frightened sailors.
   
   It is a book about the true meaning of being a warrior at sea, combat leadership, life aboard one of the best attack submarines, wartime love and the emotional conflicts and the technology of the era.
   
   The book is also about the endurance of the men who sailed on the submarines. Although the author does not dwell on the issue, due to the importance of their effort the subs were only allowed to remain in port for the few weeks it took to attend to the most critical reparis and replenishment. Then they returned to a very dangerous mission which began almost as they left port.
   
   It's also a reminder of how much the strategy of submarine warfare has changed as our WW2 subs had very limited range and speed while submerged.
   
   The author's story of their premature entry into Tokyo was great.
   
   He only devotes a few words in the afterword to cover the balance of his distinguished military career which had seemed doomed by their prank trip to Tokyo.



4. I'll echo much of what has already been written. This book is an excellent account of one man's experience with WW2 submarine operations. The author made it to the level of executive officer on a sub by the end of the war (and went on to even more interesting events as told in his other book "Surface at the Pole").
   
   The author writes clearly, interestingly, and honestly. The author covers most of his patrols (of nine if I remember correctly) in detail and even some of his personal events while on shore. He covers everything from the horror of being depth charged to the boredom and tedium of patrol.
   
   Overall the author provides an interesting and enlightening account of US Submarine operations and what it was like to serve on a US submarine in WW2.



5. This book is a real page turner. I couldn't put it down. Calvert really pulls you into the action. I picked up this book after reading "The Terrible hours" and found that I enjoyed reading about submarines. I've also just started playing "Silent Hunter III" and wanted to delve into the WWII submarine environment. This books definitely puts right along-side Calvert. I really enjoyed the growth that the book follows as Calvert graduates from the Naval Academy, gets assigned to a new submarine as it is being contructed. His writing style that takes you from a young green officer to an experienced submarine warrior is a very nice touch. This really portrays the building of his character. After reading about Swede Momsen and James Calvert, I am ready to start building a WWII submarine library.

4 comments about Command Of Honor: General Lucian Truscott's Path to Victory in World War II.

1. Although Lucian Truscott, as someone who rose to army command in World War II, is a person worthy of a good biography, this one is not it. It practically defines the word "lightweight." It is unsourced and, if the bibliography is any indication, poorly researched. Unpublished primary sources seem to have been used minimally. Large sections of the book seem to be based on nothing other than Truscott's own memoirs. The text also contains numerous "space filler" diversions irrelevant to the subject and typical of authors trying to pad the length of a book.
   
   Needless to say, there is little in the way of incisive analysis or critical examination.
   
   I don't really see an audience to whom I can recommend this book.



2. Little known today, Lucian K. Truscott, Jr. first joined the Army as a second lieutenant in 1917 through a war emergency program that supposedly turned raw civilians into officers for the expanding WW I AEF in just three months. Truscott was not sent into combat but performed so well as a "90 day wonder" that he was accepted as a professional soldier after hostilities ended. He went on to become one of the most effective and successful combat commanders in the US Army in World War II, ending the war as a lieutenant general and army commander
   
   In 1942 Truscott successfully commanded one of the three forces invading N. Africa. Later he took over the Third Infantry Division and led it to a brilliant combat record in Sicily, the invasion of Italy at Salerno and at Anzio. Truscott replaced Gen. Lucas as commander of VI Corps after the initial disasters at Anzio, and commanded the successful breakout and drive to Rome. He also commanded the Corps in the successful Allied invasion and clearance of southern France. Truscott then returned to Italy as head of Fifth Army and led that "forgotten army" successfully in the hard fighting from December 1944 to the end of the war. After the war he served for several years as a very senior officer of the newly fledged CIA. In 1954 he received a fourth star. He died in 1965.
   
   Despiite Truscott's brilliant combat record, arguably the best among US senior commanders in the European theater, he has apparently never been the subject of a good biography. This book is not it.
   
   The bulk of the book is about Truscott's WW II service. Yet it contains no maps of any kind. This alone is a fatal flaw in a military biography. In addition to the problems noted by the previous reviewer, The book fails to provide any useful discussion of Truscott's actual command methods and his tactical direction of the units that he led. The author does relate some basic facts about Truscott and his personal characteristics, mostly culled from a handful of secondary sources, but fails to provide real insight into the unusual success of this commander. In addition the writing style is lackluster and occasionally sloppy (e. g. he describes Mussolini as an officer who dabbled in politics when in fact Mussolini was a lifelong politician, never an officer and even fled to Switzerland to avoid military service, although he did serve briefly after Italy entered WW I and reached the rank of corporal). Truscott deserves much better than this.



3. I agree completely with the comments of the two previous reviewers, but would like to record some additional observations.
   
   Jeffers appears to have done little original research for his biography. Most of the book draws heavily from Truscott's two memoirs, "Command Missions" and "Twilight of the US Cavalry," and the author lists secondary sources almost exclusively in his short biography. The only primary sources other than the memoirs that he has utilized to any extent appear to be the diaries of his wartime aides and the wartime letters of Truscott to his wife, both located in the Truscott Papers at the George C. Marshall Research Library in Lexington, VA. Jeffers apparently never visited the National Archives or the US Army Military History Institute, where abundant primary source materials pertaining to Truscott's career may be found. He also apparently never interviewed Truscott' son, James, or his grandson, Lucian IV. Further, Jeffers did not attempt to obtain a copy of or review Truscott's Official Military Personnel File located in the National Personnel Records Center, nor did he attempt to obtain from the CIA under provisions of the FOIA records of Truscott's eight-year career with that agency or attempt to contact any CIA operatives with whom Truscott worked.
   
   There are many errors throughout the book. A few examples follow:
   
   1. Jeffers avers that Truscott, as Allen Dulles's deputy, was directly involved in the overthrow of Iranian Premier Mohammad Mossadegh and Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz. My review of the heavily redacted materials I received from the CIA reveals no evidence of Truscott's involvement in the Iranian operation and only very peripheral involvement in the Guatemalan operation. In fact, Truscott never served as Deputy Director of the CIA, as Jeffers's account seems to suggest, but as the Deputy Director for Coordination, a position with considerably less power and influence. Brig. Gen. Charles Cabell served as Dulles's deputy director.
   
   2. Jeffers implies that there was a close relationship beteen Dulles and Truscott. Thomas Polgar, a retired CIA operative who worked closely with Truscott in Germany, informed me that Dulles was reluctant to assign Truscott to any position of responsibility within CIA headquarters in Washington after the latter's return from Germany, and relented only after pressure from President Eisenhower to name Truscott as Deputy Director for Coordination.
   
   3. Jeffers alleges that Truscott spent his early retirement years playing golf at various courses in the vicinity of his home near Leesburg, VA. Truscott's son, James, told me that to the best of his knowledge, his father "never had a golf club in his hands" during his lifetime.
   
   4. Jeffers states that Truscott was brought out of retirement and served for a year, 1948-1949, as chairman of the Army Advisory Panel for Amphibious Operations at Fort Monroe (283). In fact, Truscott served in that capacity slightly less than three months, Nov. 3, 1948-Feb. 1, 1949.
   
   I agree that General Truscott's career deserves to be recounted, but Mr. Jeffers's effort abysmally fails in that attempt. I cannot recommend this book to any reader interested in a factual account of Truscott's life and career.



4. "COMMAND of HONOR" could not have been more appropriately nor accurately TITLED.
   This book SHOULD BE A MUST READ by anyone who holds themselves to be a serious, honest and truly informed student of MILITARY HISTORY, certainly, BUT ALSO by those who seek insights into the very soul of a TRUE WARRIOR-HUMAN BEING- ALWAYS- and LEADER of Armies. It is a true, indescribably so, and candid insight into the heart and mind of a RARE and GREAT LEADER of men who NEVER lost his focus on a NOBLE GOAL nor the VALUE or UNSHAKABLE understanding and belief in, the NOBILITY of MANKIND, be he soldier or simply private citizen.
   
   General Truscott stands 2nd to NO GENERAL, certainly of WWII, if not, indeed of any conflict. His genius NEVER clouded this great man's overwhelming and sincere humility, regardless the heights of responsibility to which such genius brought to him. He surly was at least the equal, if not the singular superior General of the Allies and even the Axis forces of that WAR. Others so passionately sought GLORY, HONOR and ACCOLADES as they exercised their Military prowess but Truscott sought NONE of that; he just focused on bringing the horror of WAR to an end as quickly as possible with the least loss of human life.
   
   I can't recall EVER, being able to recommend as 'MUST READING' of a book for every person who values honor, integrity, unshakable courage, humility, honesty and enviable character, along with superior gifts of GENIUS! This is so much more than a book of MILITARY HISTORY; it is a REMARKABLE study of a truly GREAT HUMAN BEING who can stand as a model for all to emulate.
   
   Jim Girzone

5 comments about Guns Up!.

1. I read this book at the suggestion of a friend (Sgt. Watson from the book). It was one of the quickest page-turners I have ever read. The reader is quickly made to realize the challenges of war as well as the personal sacrifices made by our soldiers. Anyone who is a soldier or knows one will appreciate this honest and well written account of this group of Marines' tour of duty.



2. This is one of the best books I've read. The writer says in the end that some of this is fiction, or that certain characters are made of multiple people he knew, but the bulk of this story is true, regardless of who it happened to. I have yet to know someone who read this book and did not have to fight back tears at least once. I have read this book 4 times now. I recommend it to anyone and everyone.



3. if you want to know what the south end of Quang Nam province was like in 1968-69, this is it. i was there, just like johnny clark; but i was in 1/7. he's done a great job of capturing the feel of the time.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   



4. Vietnam another generation, another war,life in the bush;death nearby everyday,war buddies killed.Life as a teenage Marine, either you grow up or die. A great read if you want to know what life as a Marine is.



5. This remarkable book describes the commitment of a young American (17 years) in the Marines in 1968, as a server of the famous M60 rifle gunner. "Guns up" - the order of battle and odf immediate fire - became a classic Overseas Atlantic story of the war in Vietnam. It has all the ingredients for success: good writing, humility, joint commitment ( "team spirit") and even religious faith (not that of George Bush, however, and fortunately).
   
   I found this story in the spirit of the commitment of the elite troops at the French war in Indochina. 7 months of fighting without having set foot in a barrack, living in the jungle: what warrior feat indeed! Embuscades, fraternity, weaknesses of man.
   
   A great book for a superb story.

5 comments about In Love and War.

1. I read this in '91 and still recall it on a frequent basis. A true hero, Stockdale portrays captivity objectively and with fine introspection. More than a view of being a POW during Vietnam, Stockdale's conveyed inner strength reinforced my beliefs and provides encouragement. As a gross understatement, the Stockdale's will remind many what's most important in life. The movie was shallow, as are most debates - and as such, Mr. Stockdale should reconsider his performance for '92 VP under Perot as another "badge of honor". To wit, unable to become superficial with PC pancake. This is a real book by real people



2. This book conveys the honor, courage and commitment one family had to their god, each other and their country during a very trying time.



3. I have read this book twice, the original edition and the revised and updated edition (which includes his life following his homecoming). A true American hero, whose only blunder was the Vice Presidential debate, wherein he came across poorly (in my opinion, because he was out of his element). Admiral Stockdale relates his experiences as a Naval Aviator who was shot down, captured and tortured in the Hoa Lo prison. His wife, Sybil, relates in every other chapter what was going on in her life, and her involvement with her husband as a POW. She, too, deserves tremendous credit for her activities. I contrast this book with Admiral Jeremiah Dentons's book, "When Hell was in Session", which I feel is remarkably self serving.



4. This book should be mandatory reading for history classes. Beautifully written from both perspectives of a POW and the family at home. A true American hero.



5. Without a doubt the Stockdale's should be considered a national treasure becuase of the lives they lived under arduous circumstances and horrific conditions. None of us will every fully know or much less comprehend the extent of the mutual sacrifice from both Admiral and Sybil Stockdale in service to one another, other POW/MIA families, and their country. If you want inspiration, then read their book. If you want to learn to rise above your circumstances, then read their book. If you want to move from self absorption, then read their book. If you want to understand and see commitment, sacrifice, loyalty, perseverance, tenacity of spirit, and an ability to rise above the chaos of life, then read their book. If you want a rich philosophy and ethic for life, then read their book. If after reading it you don't come away with a different outlook on life, then read it again . . . you must have been distracted. The book is a journey through their history, skewed governmental policies, personal endurance, and the value of having a personal philosophy of life.

5 comments about Napoleon III: A Life.

1. The influence of Napoleon III on nineteenth-century French history and culture is inestimable: his unlikely rise to power after the 1848 Paris revolutions cemented twenty years' worth of extravagance and folly, resulting in the splendors of the Haussmann re-development of the capital city and the horrors of the Mexican debacle and the Franco-Prussian War. There was probably never a less-likely "man of destiny" than this emperor, who managed to come to power (and hold on to it) mostly through dumb luck, and if this biography by Fenton Bresler focuses too strongly on the private life of the Second Empire's court it may be suitable for a man who seemed much more interested in managing his mistresses than his empire.

   Bresler's account is immesely readable and clear, which should be the first requirement of all popular biographies, and you do emerge from it with a strong sense of the personalities of the major figures in Napoleon's life: his amazingly resourceful (and lucky) mother, Queen Hortense of Holland; his sybaritic grandmother Josephine; his fascinating and iron-willed wife the Empress Eugenie; and his manipulative and adoring ministers and cronies. It is true that the lack of political and historical synthesis sometimes seriously mars this work: what may be worse is that Bresler's desire to say at least something that the emperor's other biographers haven't uncovered leads him to point out his newer discoveries (such as that the imperial couple had likely already prepared an escape route to Chislehurst years before the Franco-Prussian War) at overextreme length. Also his reliance on Napoleon's and Eugenie's near-contemporary biographers--whom later historians have dismissed as too fawning and inaccurate--seems a real mistake.




2. Lifelessness is a defect of far too many biographies - and works of historical fiction. Fenton Bresler's "Napoleon III" succeeds admirably in avoiding it.

   Before Napoleon III there was Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, and he is a vivid, living presence on every page of this work. Less a political biography than a personal one, the book cuts through the gilded pomp of the Second Empire to give us Louis, the man. Hotblooded, stubborn, flirtatious, fickle... More than half the book is devoted to his life before he became Emperor. Yet the book is also good in analyzing Louis as an ideologue. It has been conveniently forgotten that prior to becoming emperor, Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte wrote a number of books laying down the basis for the new ideology which Karl Marx, in attacking, baptized as Bonapartism. An accomplished schemer, Louis was blessed with talents better suited to the coming age of politics than to the warrior times of his uncle. In the end, though, his lack of military skill became the Achilles Heel responsible for his downfall. He would have been better suited for the age of the sound bite than that of the sword.

   De Morny and Persigny, Lizzie Howard and La Castiglione... the men and women of Bonapartist Paris are skillfully introduced to us on every page. Eugenie fans will not be pleased with the more critical assessment of her in this book: she is portrayed as a meddling political spouse to a degree that makes Hillary Clinton seem apolitical. A boring marriage to a wife who hated sex may havbe hastened Louis' ultimate detachment from the court he'd created.

   Many a competent professional is overshadowed by an ancestral predecessor; from young doctors to aspiring actors, many a young person finds that over time the example which inspired them ultimately becomes their bitterest rival. This has been the fate of Napoleon III, forever remembered as the "other" Napoleon. Bresler's biography introduces us to a talented and clever man who could have excelled in many different callings, yet chose for himself the Herculean task of equalling the most successful leader of the preceding five hundred years. Measured by any yardstick other than the Napoleonic one which he himself chose, the accomplishments of his career would be impressive. In an almost conversational style which shares the data without letting it dominate the narrative, Bresler reminds us why Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte was popular enough to become Napoleon III in the first place.




3. It is interesting to read a biography of the Napoleon III after one on the First for the tales are really the same tale of prempted republics and celebrity families with their predations of revolutionary changes, as the ghost of hybrid reactionaries stalks the legacy of the new bourgeoisie. The result here is a sort of hors d'oeuvre for Marx's classic Eighteen Brumaire, "Hegel observes somewhere that all great incidents, and individuals of history occur, as it were, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce". Napoleon Louis' takeover of the republican hopes of 1848 was, however, a species of sly cleverness that shows no dunce even as the outcome, as the second Empire, is barren of result (although a kind of rancid liberalism and never fulfilled sympathy with the goals of revolution is characteristic of all the Napoleons, if only as a celebrity mystique). A strange sort of daydream, the disguised persistence of the ancient regime in Mayr's phrase of his book by that name, one that simples wakes up to reality in a matter of weeks, as the Franco-Prussian War sweeps the fantasy into the dustbin.



4. Napoleon III has always been an enigma, both during his own time and remaining so today. This book refreshingly spares us the ho-hum political, military, and economic details of Nap III's reign and concentrates instead on the man and how events and people influenced him and made him what he was -- a rather tragic, confused, and vain little man trying to fill the shoes and name of an illustrious predecessor. The author for the most part is sympathetic to his subject and uses a variety of published material and private research to support his observations of Nap III and why he reacted to circumstances and events as he did. The author writes with a very readable style and presents a complete yet not dull life of his subject. Of particular interest are the many affairs that Nap III carried on before and after marriage and his relationship with his wife and Empress Eugenie. I would highly recommend this book as a fine overview of Nap III's life and conduct.



5. Say what you will about this strange little man, but he had taste and he remade Paris into what it is today. His accention to the throne of France is nothing short of incredible, but this man had amazing chuzpa and he willed it so. He had nothing in common with his illustrious, some say infamous uncle Napoleon, except a name. I liked how he loved pomp and he could really get his cult of peronality out there. He was a despot yes, but fairly enlightened, I mean compare him to the dour idiot Victoria and he was not all bad, granted England did much better under her ministers..(not her, she was shut up at Balmoral or the Isle of Wight, mourning her German stud, Albert)..ask someone what a prince albert is and you get idea of his..uh devotion to a nice pant line), but France under Napoleon III had style and it was he who ushered it in..certainly not the fool Louis Phillip who preceded him. This is good book, with a nice history lesson, that's not too painful.