Military Bookshelf: Classics Corner

Military.com - Tom Miller

So many books, so little time. 

That's a universal lament among bibliophiles.  Even for someone who reads books and writes about them professionally, there never seems to be enough time to get to everything.  And, that's just the new books that arrive on the doorstep.  Trying to find time for the overlooked or neglected classics is almost always a book too far. 

But, occasionally, I manage to steal a few days for a literary guilty pleasure or two.  Here are the latest.  
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China Marine: An Infantryman's Life after World War II, by E.B. Sledge. Oxford University Press, $14.95 (167p) ISBN 0-19-516776-7

This sequel to Sledge's classic memoir of the Pacific War, "With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa," follows the author--a Marine PFC in the First Marine Division--on occupation duty in North China and finally on his long--literally and figuratively--trip home to Mobile, Ala., and post-war America.  It's a journey of hope and pain, discovery and eventual recovery. 

Sledge and the First Marine Division saw some of the fiercest fighting of World War II.  Of the 240 men in Sledge's company who landed on Peleliu on D-Day, all but ten (including the author) were either killed or wounded by the end of the Okinawa campaign.  (Sledge writes hauntingly about his combat experiences in his acclaimed memoir.)

At war's end, the First Marines were dispatched to North China to oversee the surrender and repatriation of the Japanese troops there.  As it turned out, a larger danger was getting caught in the middle of a civil war between the Nationalist government and the Communists.  For combat infantrymen, the duty was more boring than dangerous, and Sledge took advantage of his liberty to see as much as possible of the exotic land.  

Sledge left China in February, 1946, to return to the States.  While happy to be going home, the prospect of leaving his "comrades in combat" saddened him.  They were, he writes, "the bravest, finest friends I will ever know." 

With typical modesty, graciousness, and stoicism, Sledge writes of his return--with its immediate culture shock and long years of nightmares--that "my adjustment to civilian life was not easy."  But, adjust he did.  He discovered a passion for science--his self-described "salvation"--and an anchor in his family.  He earned a PhD in zoology and taught biology at the University of Montevallo (Ala.) until retirement.  He died in 2001 at the age of seventy-seven. 

With the Old Breed is required reading for anyone who wants to see war as it is experienced by the individual infantryman.  But, as writer Paul Fussell--a combat veteran himself--has noted, "the combat veteran not only has to survive the experience, he has to learn to live with it the rest of his life."  In that regard, China Marine is the essential second act of Sledge's wartime experience. 

Quotable

"In all the years since the war and China Duty, I've never gotten accustomed to civilians complaining about trivial inconveniences."

"Alcohol can be a wonderful escape from bad memories, but it is addictive, will make you act the fool, and ultimately ruin you."

"I didn't realize how swiftly most Americans (who did not experience combat) would once again take their freedom for granted."

"I am proud of the number of the enemy I fired on and hit . . . and regret the ones I missed.  There is no 'mellowing' for me--that would be to forgive all the atrocities the Japanese committed against millions of Asians and thousands of Americans.  To 'mellow' is to forget."
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The Return of the Soldier, by Rebecca West.  Introduction by Verlyn Klinkenborg.  The Modern Library, $11.95 (82p) ISBN 978-0-8129-7122-4

This bittersweet story of a shell-shocked soldier returning home to England from the front in France was published in 1918 by a twenty-four-year-old Englishwoman.  Even more remarkably, it was her debut novel. 

Captain Chris Baldry's shell-shock is manifested as amnesia, and while he remembers his early life, he can't recall anything from the past fifteen years.  That includes his time in the trenches.  It also includes his beautiful wife Kitty. 

He does, however, remember his pre-nuptials lover Margaret Allington, whom he insists on seeing upon his return.  And in his eyes (and mind), she remains the pretty young woman she was when they parted over a silly quarrel, not the gray figure "repulsively furred with neglect and poverty" that she's since become. 

While Kitty despairs, Chris spends his hours alone with Margaret and seems in no hurry for a cure and a return to reality. 

But, Kitty is desperate to have Chris back and brings in a psychologist--steeped in the fashionably new Freudian views--who concludes that Chris "'has forgotten his life here because he is discontented with it.'" 

Ironically, it seems that Margaret, who has nothing to gain and everything to lose, is the key to restoring Chris' memory. 

West is not so much interested in war as she is in the mysteries of love and beauty, the tyranny of social class, and the burdens of reality.   The England of The Return of the Soldier was receding even as West was writing the novel, but her themes are universal. 

Quotable

"Beautiful women . . . are obscurely aware that it is their civilizing mission to flash the jewel of their beauty before all men, so that they shall desire it and work to get the wealth to buy it, and thus be seduced by a present appetite to a tilling of the earth that serves the future."
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Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America, and the New Face of American War, by Evan Wright. Berkley Caliber, $15 (370p) ISBN 978-0-425-22474-8

Okay, so this account of the Iraqi Freedom invasion can't be labeled a classic yet.  Probably never will be.  But, the book garnered mostly positive reviews when published in 2004 and became the basis for a hit HBO miniseries this past summer.  And, with the DVD of the miniseries coming out this month, I decided to take another look at the book. 

Rolling Stone journalist Wright embedded with the 1st Marine Reconnaissance Battalion for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.  The 1st Recon is an elite unit--the Marine Corps Special Forces--and it had been picked to spearhead the Marines dash to Baghdad.  Pushing out in front of the main Marine force--Regimental Combat Team 1--the 1st Recon's role was to flush out ambushes and clear the way for the main force.  By the end of the drive to Baghdad, some were calling the 1st Recon, the "First Suicide Battalion."

Wright rides with a team from 2nd Platoon, Bravo Company led by Sgt. Brad Colbert who says that he hails from the "Communist Republic of California."  A respected Afghan veteran that the other Marines call "The Iceman," Colbert is the hero of Wright's narrative.  Colbert's driver is Cpl. Ray Person who, fortified with Ripped Fuel and adrenaline, chatters constantly and figures prominently in the tale. The platoon's commander is Lieutenant Nathaniel Fick. 

Wright notes that over half of these Marines come from broken homes and represent "America's first generation of disposable children."  But, he clearly enjoys their company and respects their service.  He saves most of his opprobrium for their officers and the war. 

With few exceptions, Wright portrays the officers of 1st Recon as incompetent and reckless:  Bravo's company commander, an officer identified only as Encino Man, is a clueless Neanderthal; a platoon commander, dubbed Captain America, is a buffoon; and the battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Stephen Ferrando, is heedless of his men's well-being. 

The war is ill-conceived, ill-planned, and ill-fought.  From Wright's narrative, one gets the impression that there were more civilian casualties than otherwise.  Moreover, while much is made of civilian casualties and U.S. culpability, little context is supplied.  The fact that the enemy most often dressed in civilian attire and hid among the civilian population is mostly overlooked. 

Even so, Wright gives the Marines room to tell their story, and it's worth hearing:  profane, irreverent, politically-incorrect, and plain-spoken. 

Marine Wit & Wisdom

"We're [the Marines] like America's little pit bull.  They beat it, starve it, mistreat it, and once in a while they let it out to attack somebody."

"Never have kids.  One kid will cost you three hundred thousand dollars.  You should never have gotten married.  It's always a mistake."

"Everything in life is overrated except death."

"A Marine will f--k anything."

"Don't pet a burning dog."

"Iraqis have a short attention span just like the American public.  As soon as they stop celebrating that we got rid of Saddam and . . . figure out we're not going to be . . . giving everyone a new car and a color TV--they'll turn on us."

"The only thing we have to worry about are the f--king do-gooders.  Luckily, there's not too many of those."

"One universal fact of being in the Marine Corps is that no matter where we go in the world, we always end up in some random sh--tty place."

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Copyright 2009 by Tom Miller