Military Bookshelf: Spring Potpourri, Part Deux

Military.com - Tom Miller

Child 44, by Tom Rob Smith. 

Grand Central Publishing, $24.99 (439p) ISBN 978-0-446-40238-5

Smith delivers a cast of carefully drawn characters, a surfeit of atmospheric historical detail, some intriguing plot twists, and good old-fashioning story-telling in this auspicious debut thriller. 

The story begins in the Russian countryside of 1933 as two young brothers, Pavel and Andrei, stalk a scrawny cat through the woods.  If caught, the cat will be dinner for the desperate family.  Just as success seems possible, the boys are separated and Pavel and the cat disappear.  Neither is ever found. 

Fast-forward to Moscow in 1953.  A five-year-old boy is found dead near railroad tracks.  He is naked, his mouth stuffed with dirt, and he's been disemboweled.  His family insists he's been murdered, but the authorities rule it an accident.  Leo Stepanovich Demidov, an agent of the MGB—State Security agency—is detailed to warn the grieving family not to make waves.

Despite his exemplary record—a war hero, a Party member, a faithful servant of the MGB—Leo soon finds himself under investigation.  When his superiors demand that he denounce his wife Raisa, a school teacher, as a spy, Leo refuses. In an example of his often lyrical prose, Smith notes that "To stand up for someone was to stitch your fate into the lining of theirs."

The death of Soviet Premier Josef Stalin rescues Leo and Raisa from a summary execution, and they are exiled to remote Voualsk where Leo is put to work with the local militia.  As coincidence would have it, the militia is called to investigate the death of a girl found naked in the woods near the railroad tracks.  She has been disemboweled and her mouth stuffed with dirt. 

Suspecting a connection—instead of a coincidence—Leo convinces his militia boss to open a quiet investigation.  When they uncover at least 44 dead children found under similar circumstances, they realize that they have a deranged serial killer on their hands. Their bigger problem is that the State refuses to acknowledge the crimes and is willing to go to extreme links to stop Leo. 

In addition to a tantalizing story, Smith vividly captures the climate of pervasive fear that permeated Soviet society and the extreme, and often ludicrous, measures the State undertook to protect inconsistencies and contradictions in its ideology. 
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Call of Duty: My Life Before, During, and After Band of Brothers, by Lt. Lynn "Buck" Compton with Marcus Brotherton. 

Berkley Caliber, $24.95 (275p) ISBN 978-0-425-21970-6

Compton, a platoon leader with Easy Company, the famous World War II "Band of Brothers," recounts the story of his remarkable life from a working-class background in Los Angeles to athletic stardom at UCLA, wartime service with the 101st Airborne Division, and a postwar career in criminal justice—as cop, district attorney, and appeals court judge—in this unpretentious memoir. 

Compton attended UCLA on a football scholarship and played both football and baseball with Jackie Robinson.  He also participated in ROTC and left school early for active duty during World War II.  Following jump school, he joined Easy Company at Aldbourne, England in December 1943. 

Compton fought in Normandy where he earned a Silver Star, during Operation Market Garden where he was wounded, and at the Battle of the Bulge. 

After the war, he finished college, attended law school, and worked as an L.A. cop, an assistant district attorney (he prosecuted Robert Kennedy's assassin Sirhan Sirhan), and a state appeals court judge.  Married twice, he has two daughters. 

Compton admits that the producers took some dramatic license with the "Band of Brothers" mini-series, but he expresses approval of the results.  He does take the opportunity, however, to correct a few points.  Contrary to the program's depiction, he claims that he never suffered from shell-shock at Bastogne.  He also admits a certain animosity toward LT Lewis Nixon. 

An unabashed patriot, Compton sums up his war-time service succinctly: "I figure three years of my time is a cheap price to pay for living in this country.  Nobody owes me a thing."  Likewise, he says that "the war against terror needs to be fought and won," and warns anti-war critics that "peace is cheap."  All you have to do is surrender. 

At eighty-five-years young, Buck Compton recounts a life of service to a country he loves in a refreshingly frank memoir.
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Paperback Tip:  Call it fortuitous, but on the same day (May 6) that Band of Brother Buck Compton's memoir is being published, Easy Company's commander Dick Winters' war memoir is being reprinted in paperback:

Beyond Band of Brothers: The War Memoirs of Major Dick Winters, by Major Dick Winters with Colonel Cole Kingseed,

Berkley Caliber Trade Paperback, $15 (320p) ISBN 978-0-425-21375-9.

When Easy's company commander was killed on D-Day, Winters took over and led the company during the Normandy and Market Garden campaigns.  He earned the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions against a German artillery battery on D-Day. 

Winters became battalion executive officer after Market Garden and helped guide the battalion through the misery and terror of Bastogne, the drive into Germany, and the early post-war occupation.  He returned to the U.S. and civilian life in November, 1945.  Fifty years later, near the end of a successful life, he (and his fellow paratroopers from Easy) discovered fame as the faces of the Greatest Generation. 

It's a compelling story and never seems to get old.  The original telling of Easy Company's story—historian Stephen Ambrose's Band of Brothers—was selective, not definitive, and the mini-series didn't always stick to the facts.  That gives Winters (and Compton) an opening to flesh out the story and set the record straight. 

Winters tries to be fair to everyone and consistently deflects praise to the company's NCO's and men.  The central value of this memoir is its lessons on leadership.  Winters includes a formal list of leadership principles, but the real lessons are to be found throughout the book as we watch him conduct his personal life, interact with his men, and handle the ultimate challenge of combat—all with grace and dignity.  It is clear that Winters lived these principles long before he distilled them into a list.  And, that is the heartbeat of this fine memoir.

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Copyright 2012 by Tom Miller