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Title: The Coldest War: A Memoir of Korea by James Brady ISBN: 0-312-26511-5 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 01 June, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.33 (15 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: A Seductive & Absorbing Description Of Life On The Ground!
Comment: For anyone interested in learning more about the human experience of war, this is an unforgettable book. Expecting to avoid the futility of the draft by joining the Marine Corps right out of college, the author finds himself a young officer in Korea as a field officer commanding a rifle platoon. This memoir details what it is like to be a young, inexperienced, and frightened soldier on the ground when all Hell breaks loose. Like many of his generation, Brady discovers that time spent in trenches between episodes in combat are quite as burdensome as the firefights themselves, with too much time, too little comfort, and endless seas of ceaseless rain, snow, mud, and exposure to the elements for the uninitiated to wallow in.
Brady's account of the rapid education a naïve and untried young officer has to learn and accomplish to stay alive and in command as the fight erupts, evolves, and subsides. His description of the day-to-day experience of war in Korea is quite evocative, and he succeeds in spinning a very readable and entertaining introduction to the realities of life as a foot soldier. Defense of fixed-line trenches in a deadly barrage of enemy artillery is absolutely terrifying to the young marines, as are the long still nights, filled with a deceptive calm. The quick-changing extremes in Korean weather often provided additional challenges to the young marines, and he explains how the combination of sustained periods of cold with an eerie pregnant silence sometimes lulled the troopers into sometimes-deadly states of inattention. If war can be described as long periods of boredom punctuated by sudden explosions of murder and mayhem, then this book is a deadly accurate portrayal of the experience of war.
Too many of our contemporary citizens lack an understanding of the extreme nature of the experience of combat, and that periods of actual combat are usually short and staccato experiences that come with absolute surprise and subside just as suddenly. As important in understanding the enormity of the experience of war are the other elements; loneliness, boredom, and exposure to the elements. Under the most difficult of circumstances, ordinary human beings are called upon to make the most solemn and extreme sacrifices, and this book details the terrifying context in which all this unfolded in Korea better than anything else I have read on the subject. I heartily recommend this book, and hope it will be widely read.
Rating: 5
Summary: Justice on the Imjin! Life & times of Marine James Brady!
Comment: Good grief Brady. Suck in your gut! Trim down to that lean and mean trenchwise Marine of 1952. And by all means, keep writing books if they are as engaging a human interest story as this one.
A chronology of life as a platoon leader in the static, bunker warfare of Korea's second year, I found Brady's book a refreshing contrast to many first person accounts, Korean War accounts in particular. No exhilirating offensives here; no retreats, no advancing in a different direction. Only night patrol warfare with its attendant, alternate boredom, tragedy, hollow victories. Marines lost to mines, to frostbite, to friendly fire, to random shell or mortar fire. Starlight was enough for Brady to patrol by--moonlight cast too many shadows. John Chafee-- later Governor and Senator from Rhode Island-- urged the young author to know his troops 'as Marines, as professionals; but not as men.' A frozen turd once cued Brady that an injured Chinese was too far ahead to make further pursuit worthwhile. Brady the Marine agonizes if Chinese fleeing a napalmed village were women or men-- but Brady the journalist uses an economy of word thats conveys the intensity of combat; the need to reach a quick decision, stick-- and live-- with it
There is reflection and commentary here, too. Brady compares tactical approach of Army vs. Marine rifle companies. The latter were better organized and equipped. "NO way a man in combat can give orders to more than 3 men." In battalion reserve Brady's Marines tangles with civilians, even were accused of rape. He lamented the loss 'of pride, of discipline, of professionalism' that came from being away from the War. On a hospital ship in In'chon harbor for a routine examination, he decries the poor treatment from Sailors.
Perhaps Dean Acheson can claim to have been 'Present at the Creation' of the post WWII cold war order. Brady was more than present--he was a part. And he trumps the cocky Secretary of State: Brady was there at its final destruction--the Berlin Wall-- as well. Admittedly as a paunchy journalist, but hey, the guy paid his dues. He has just raised one too many for the New World Order.
Rating: 5
Summary: 90 day wonders with life and death decisions
Comment: James Brady's vignette, haunting, poignant, reflective, should take its place along side of William Manchester and John Keegan. The story he tells is not how it should have been, it's not even how he would have liked it to have been. It's like it was. Brady is like any other 19 year old, brash, filled with adventure, drunk on promise and the illusion of immortality. Then he signs up with the Marine Reserves if not avoid, then to postpone his own appointment with destiny. Unfortunately, destiny has a mind of its own, and a few years later he finds himself the Platoon Commander of a Marine Rifle platoon on Hill 749, in the winter of 1951, in Korea.
Brady doesn't judge. I like that most about his reflections on a horrible war in a freezing place. If you want to hang Truman, MacArthur, Eisenhower, and John Foster Dulles, this is probably the wrong book for you. It is brilliant but it tells only the story of one man-boy's experience placed in charge of 40 men in combat.
To some extent we look down on those boys. We judge them, forgetting that like us, they too were caught in the flotsam of other people's decisions. Although with most of us, the whole world doesn't subsequently judge us. War's change, the technology of killing becomes more sophisticated, sides change, enemies become friends, and bad guys become good guys. Frequenly we forget that it's the young men who take the fire. The greatest homily to Brady and the only self serving remark he makes would be truly understood by a few. When he leaves the fields where 54,000 died, he says, "I hadn't lost any men . . "
Brady reminds us that young men are faced with terrible decisions when politicians, frequently never in harm's way, put them into unexplained and perhaps unnecessary combat. We should not judge those boys. And we should not judge them after they become men. 5 stars. A sobering read.To Jim Brady, if no one told you, welcome home.
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Title: The Marines of Autumn: A Novel of the Korean War by James Brady ISBN: 0312280815 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 01 May, 2001 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Colder Than Hell: A Marine Rifle Company at Chosin Reservoir by Joseph R. Owen ISBN: 0804116970 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 01 October, 1997 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Breakout: The Chosin Reservoir Campaign, Korea 1950 by Martin Russ ISBN: 0140292594 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 June, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Marine: A Novel of War From Guadalcanal to Korea by James Brady ISBN: 0312291426 Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books Pub. Date: 01 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Warning of War: A Novel by James Brady ISBN: 0312280181 Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books Pub. Date: 01 April, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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