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Title: Rifleman Dodd (Great War Stories Series) by C. S. Forester, E. H. Simmons ISBN: 0-933852-76-2 Publisher: Nautical & Aviation Pub Co of Amer Pub. Date: February, 1990 Format: Hardcover List Price(USD): $21.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.31 (13 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Yours is Not to Wonder Why . . . An Explanation of Duty
Comment: I picked this up in the Marine Corps Association bookstore, and a few chapters into it I understood why the Marines placed it on the Commandant's Reading List. Rifleman Dodd is an exemplary soldier: cut off from his regiment, surrounded by the enemy in a foreign land whose language, people and customs he knows not, Dodd merely soldiers on, seeking to return to his unit and in doing so, wreak as much havoc on the enemy as possible.
In reading this book, you get a sense of what profesisonalism is in the military from the bottom-up. Moreoever, the book conveys to the reader the benefits of a professional military as opposed to a conscript force in terms of morale and training.
Also, Forester relates some of the nastiness for which the Peninsular Campaign was infamous. Dodd takes up with a bunch of Portugese irregulars, and the attrocities which one finds in history books committed by the locals and the French are often repeated in the course of the novel, Rifleman Dodd.
Rifleman Dodd brings out many themese and issues one often has in discussions of a professional military in the course of its flowing, exciting narrative.
Rating: 5
Summary: Never, Never, Never Give Up! What one rifleman can do!
Comment: Appropriate reading for Marines. (The book is on the Commandant's Professional Reading List, --A good choice) Rifleman Dodd's example personifies what clear thinking during times of extreme hardship and war can produce. Dodd continued to function and fight, showing great resourcefulness and the virtues of patience, leadership, and marksmanship. It is what Marine warrior training is all about. Cut off from his rifle unit he continued to fight and function. He protected himself utilizing terrain and land navigation techniques to his advantage. His ability to live off the land, care of his rifle, and marksmanship skills to wreck havoc and destruction on the enemy are commendable. Dodd exemplifies what one trained rifleman can accomplish under extremely harsh conditions. While the setting takes place in the Napoleonic Wars and behind enemy lines the circumstances are applicable to modern warfare and life in general. It's the Marine creed of dedication to duty and time honored principals that are personified in the performance of Dood's duty at the lowest ranking level. The book is well written but could use a glossary of terms used in those times that would make it even more understandable. Look up what you don't understand. Excellent reading choice when you think things are not going right for you. (Fits nice in pack) Good gift item for military personnel. Recommended and purchased for friends who are contemplating enlisting in USMC. Lt. Gary L. "snook" Hoffman, Director of Training and Education. CCSO.
Former Sergeant USMC.
Rating: 4
Summary: Cornwell's inspiration
Comment: Just thought I'd add that Bernard Cornwell cites this book as his favorite Forester and the inspiration for his Sharpe novels, also about a British Rifleman, mainly in Spain 1809-1815. As a matter of fact, Dodd appears as a minor character under Sharpe's command in, I think, SHARPE'S RIFLES.
It's been at least a decade since I last read this book, so I don't recall all the details. But my memory is that Dodd is just a shade TOO heroic. On the other hand, he's an excellent illustration of Forester's recurring theme of the way overlooked individuals can change the course of history. (My personal favorites on this theme by Forester: THE GUN and BROWN ON RESOLUTION, aka SINGLE-HANDED.) I also think it's important to remember the novel tells a parallel story too: the saga of French Sgt. Godinot and his platoon, who are killed off one-by-one during their encounters with Dodd and Portuguese guerrillas. Their hair-raising experiences as members of an occupying army in a land swarming with ferocious irregulars gave me pause about the American efforts in Vietnam when I first read RIFLEMAN DODD back in the 1960s (and causes similar thoughts about our current occupation in Iraq; sure hope I'm wrong about that).
Forester's style depends a lot on understatement, and it pays off in the final pages. Having returned at last to his unit at the end, Dodd gazes at guerrilla campfires in the hills, and Forester deadpans that in one of them the guerrillas are burning Sgt. Godinot to death. There's also a paragraph that gives a poignant flash of the rifleman's later life, describing him as a "querulous, bald-headed old boozer" sitting by the stove in drunken old age, who can never quite tell his adventures in a coherent way. It's very touching, and that paragraph by itself is almost worth the price.
RIFLEMAN DODD is a great, understated adventure book.
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Title: The Captain from Connecticut (Great War Stories) by C. S. Forester ISBN: 1877853305 Publisher: Nautical & Aviation Pub Co of Amer Pub. Date: 21 June, 1999 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: The General by C. S. Forester ISBN: 1877853399 Publisher: Nautical & Aviation Pub Co of Amer Pub. Date: January, 1988 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: The Barbary Pirates by C. S. Forester ISBN: 0884119270 Publisher: Amereon Ltd Pub. Date: June, 1975 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: The Gun by C. S. Forester ISBN: 1931313253 Publisher: Simon Publications Pub. Date: July, 2001 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Sharpe's Skirmish by Bernard Cornwell ISBN: 0972222006 Publisher: The Sharpe Appreciation Society Pub. Date: 03 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $6.00 |
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