James H. WebbBesprekingen

Brandon Condley är en före detta marinsoldat med oläkta minnen från striderna i Vietnams djungel. Han bär på sorgen över den kvinna han älskade som dödats av kommunisterna för sitt samröre med honom. Nu arbetar han med att leta upp försvunna amerikanska soldater, levande eller döda. Condley får i uppdrag att spåra en gammal Vietnamsoldat och desertör som gått över till fienden. Det visar sig att Condley har personliga skäl att finna mannen, som fortfarande är i livet och spåren leder honom till Australien, Moskva och slutligen Bangkok.

I think this is one of the best military novels ever written. It brings life to the love/hate relationship that so many Marines and sailors have toward their service. I first read this book as a 19 year old Marine. I don't really remember what I liked about it back then, but it was probably the hard core nature of guys like Fogarty. Now in my 40s, this book resonates for different reasons, chief among them are the bitter-sweet nature of gaining life experience and having to work within a system. Webb does a superb job of showing how that gung-ho spirit sweeps into a person's psyche.

Webb describes his background as a decorated Marine officer serving in Vietman, a novelist, and a former member of the Reagan Administration and U.S. Senate. He's an interesting guy with good political insights. While not a current candidate for higher office, his ideas and the solutions he offers for many of the difficult areas facing our Country might make him a viable candidate for a position in an Obama administration.

Of all the books I’ve read about the Vietnam War, only two have been novels: this one and Red Flags by Juris Jurvevics. Fields of Fire is definitely a Naked and the Dead/Thin Red Line foxhole kind of story. The home front and love interest stories seem like necessary dramatic distractions. But James Webb is dead-on with his battlefield reports.

Parts of this book, Scots-Irish history and culture and its impact on America, were fascinating and enlightening. Glorification of that culture and some of its champions like Andrew Jackson diminished my assessment of the book.½

I was reflecting on this book, which I read back when I was at the Naval Academy (I think all the plebes in 2nd co. were ordered to read it, certainly our youngsters talked about it with us, but I think the 2nd classmen, class of '90, were the ones who were really big on the book for some reason. I think that the book was published in 86, which is when they would have started plebe summer...). I told my manager at that there was nothing for me to learn from the USNA experience and she told me to think about it some more. Well, I see that she was right. But it's only just coming into being, this lesson. It needs to finish germinating but I can already see the seed of an idea, the lessons to be learned. Amazing that it can take 20 years almost to learn these lessons. My own sense of honor back at that time demanded that I stand up to several upperclassmen telling me to be gung-ho about unneccessry killing and singing cadences about napalm sticking to kids. The upperclassmen decided that I was too squeemish to be in 'their' navy.
Anyway, thinking on this book I read back then, "A Sense of Honor" brought me to some comments about honor, and this one was particularly interesting. He feels honor is a 'better' man's morality, but I see that as a bit snobbish personally. I prefer to see honor as a way of living that upholds the dignity of all.

(This LJ post was made back in 2008. Twenty years after I left Annapolis. Now 28 yrs...
Looking back, now I see that much of the criticisms of the upperclassmen and my classmates regarding my brain-dumping was a result of my then undiagnosed PTSD, which I'd still like to know whether all those psych tests we took on Induction Day showed in any way...)
Read, Write, Dream, Teach !

ShiraDest
22 February, 12016 HE

I was reflecting on this book, which I read back when I was at the Naval Academy (I think all the plebes in 2nd co. were ordered to read it, certainly our youngsters talked about it with us, but I think the 2nd classmen, class of '90, were the ones who were really big on the book for some reason. I think that the book was published in 86, which is when they would have started plebe summer...). I told my manager at that there was nothing for me to learn from the USNA experience and she told me to think about it some more. Well, I see that she was right. But it's only just coming into being, this lesson. It needs to finish germinating but I can already see the seed of an idea, the lessons to be learned. Amazing that it can take 20 years almost to learn these lessons. My own sense of honor back at that time demanded that I stand up to several upperclassmen telling me to be gung-ho about unneccessry killing and singing cadences about napalm sticking to kids. The upperclassmen decided that I was too squeemish to be in 'their' navy.
Anyway, thinking on this book I read back then, "A Sense of Honor" brought me to some comments about honor, and this one was particularly interesting. He feels honor is a 'better' man's morality, but I see that as a bit snobbish personally. I prefer to see honor as a way of living that upholds the dignity of all.

(This LJ post was made back in 2008. Twenty years after I left Annapolis. Now 28 yrs...
Looking back, now I see that much of the criticisms of the upperclassmen and my classmates regarding my brain-dumping was a result of my then undiagnosed PTSD, which I'd still like to know whether all those psych tests we took on Induction Day showed in any way...)
Read, Write, Dream, Teach !

ShiraDest
22 February, 12016 HE

History of the Scots-Irish in Scotland and Ireland and the migration to America. Includes his family history and overview of the Appalachia region in the 19th and 20th century. Goes into great detail about what makes up the Scots-Irish culture

What a farrago of ethnocentrism, stereotyping, and special pleading this turned out to be! Well before this book was written, in 1962, James G. Leyburn in the foreword to his Scotch-Irish, much quoted by Webb, complained of

"... almost useless books of exaggerated praise or of sweeping criticism of a whole people. The Scotch-Irish have been written about as a "racial" group, as if their virtues and defects were inherent in their stock; they have been called the first typical American pioneers, the bulwark of the Revolution, the first radical element in American politics ... "

I read this as a follow-on to J. D. Vance's Hill Billy Elegy, and also because, among my five ethnic groups, is Scots-Irish. As the book progresses, Webb increasingly merges the history of the Scots-Irish with his family history, finally setting up the Webbs as the paradigm of the ethnic group. They would probably consider my own Scots-Irish grandfather, a genial, prosperous, concrete salesman who didn't hunt, didn't own a gun, and had no wood-lore, to be a total wuss, if not a traitor.

The book starts out fairly well with a discussion of the future Scotland as the part of Britain cut off by Hadrian's wall, after the Roman's decided it wasn't worth conquering. Inhabited by Picts and Celts, with the later additions of the Irish Scotti, the Anglo-Saxons, and the Anglo-Normans, in the Middle Ages it became an independent kingdom. Beginning in the 16th century, partly driven by population pressures, some of the by now largely Presbyterian inhabitants accepted the opportunity to migrate to Ireland. In the 18th century, they begin to migrate to the British-American colonies. Here, according to Webb, they form the backbone of the American Revolution, even if they are not the theoreticians. There is some possible caviling with this account, but let's move on.

Webb discusses the dispersion of the Scots-Irish in America. He tells us that some of them settled in Pennsylvania (like my forebears) and migrated westward across the northern United States; some made it to California. But those are not the people from whom he is descended, and we never hear about them again.

He praises Scots-Irish Andrew Jackson to the heavens, off-setting the Trail of Tears with the Jacksons's adoption of an Indian child. Not too equivalent, I think. Let's leave it that he had his good points, and his bad points, the latter of which Webb prefers to ignore. Apparently he is also the last wealthy Scots-Irishman that Webb is aware of. Hereafter, the story sticks to Appalachian mountaineers and poor Southern whites. One might think that "poor Southern White" and Scots-Irish are synonyms.

When Webb gets to the Civil War, the book really goes off the rails. Webb gets lost in the romance of the Lost Cause. Having earlier discussed the three classes of the South, placing the Scots-Irish in the middle of poor whites, he forgets this and plunges into the myth of the solidly unified South, fighting doggedly to the end. In fact, as recounted in William W. Freehling's The South Vs. The South: How Anti-Confederate Southerners Shaped the Course of the Civil War, many poor whites objected to the battle for secession as "a rich man's war and a poor man's fight," especially since rich men weren't subject to the draft, even without buying their way out like they did in the North. While happy to claim West Virginia as a major center of the Scots-Irish, he ignores the fact that the state exists because the mountaineers of western Virginia didn't want to secede from the Union. When I took a geneaology course, the teacher warned us that if we were anxious to trace our heroic Confederate ancestors, we would probably find that they had deserted before the end of the war.

The rest doesn't get any better. Jim Crow laws and the Ku Klux Klan are all the fault of the damnyankees, for which "red-necks" have been unfairly blamed. Someone once said that the tragedy of the South is that working-class whites didn't see that they had more in common in working-class Blacks than they had with elite whites. (Ditto for the rest of the country and the rest of the minorities.) Webb glimpses this very briefly, but manages to forget it almost immediately. To expand upon a point made by E. J. Dionne in his Why Americans Hate Politics, the working class tends to take the brunt of social change, and in this age of increasing income inequity they are floundering, and they need to avoid allowing their differences to overwhelm their common interests.

The Scots-Irish are unfairly excluded from Harvard; the fact that Asians and Jews are so successful at getting in is just part of the unfairness. He doesn't consider that they were (and in some eyes still are) despised minorities who worked hard to earn their qualifications and to be accepted on the basis of their qualifications. Unlike Vance, in Hill Billy Elegy he doesn't consider that his stereotyped Scots-Irish, who he describes as unintellectual, might need to consider cultural changes, and could take a lesson. He complains that preferences are given to Black Americans, ignoring that these are part of an attempt to overcome the exclusion of qualified African-Americans throughout history and our society, not an anti-poverty program per se. He talks about his father's heroic efforts to qualify for a degree while working and raising a family, but he can't quite seem to take a break from his ancestor worship to admit that if you don't want to live like your ancestors, you need be different from them, however admirable they may have been in their time. He might consider James Baldwin's warning: "People who imagine that history flatters them are impaled on their history like a butterfly on a pin and become incapable of seeing or changing themselves, or the world."

I'm going to read James G. Leyburn's The Scotch-Irish and David Hackett Fischer's Albion's Seed and hope for better.

A wonderfully detailed history of the Scots-Irish people. I especially appreciated how Webb brought out aspects of the Scots-Irish history that tend to be overlooked, such as that as poor Southern whites, the Scots-Irish were just as badly off as Southern blacks. The only thing they had going for them was that they weren't black in an era of segregation. Then civil rights activists came in and alienated poor Southern whites by blaming them, along with more affluent whites, for the plight of the blacks. This naturally enraged the Scots-Irish and turned them from potential allies into bitter enemies of civil rights, because they were being tarred and feathered for oppression they had little to no part in. Even today people rarely discriminate between economic classes and simply blame all Southern whites for slavery and segregation. I really appreciated Webb's careful scholarship in bringing this and other historical discrepancies to light.

5312. Lost Soldiers, by James Webb (read 19 Sep 2015) Because I much liked Webb's Fields of Fire, which I read 5 Mar 2001, and his A Sense of Honor, read 20 Mar 2001, and his The Emperor's General, read 25 Jan 2004, and because I had a good talk with him this year when he came to Sioux City, I decided to read his 2001 novel, Lost Soldiers. It is laid in Vietnam long after the end of the war, when a Marine officer, Brandon Condley, is seeking to recover and identify an American buried in Vietnam, whose dog tags do not match the buried body. Condley seeks to locate and deal justice to an American deserter who killed two of the marines that Condrey had in his command. The scenes laid in Vietnam, Hawaii, and Thailand reek authenticity (so far as it appeared to me). The story builds to an exciting and unexpected satisfactory climax.

if you are looking for a lot of "action" it is there in bursts but mostly it is a probably realistic but horribly depressing view of the Vietnam War in the 1960's.

You follow a bunch of guys as they live laugh and die fighting in Vietnam. You are huddling in a fire pit as bullets and mortars whizz by your head, you return fire at night at shadows by the treeline. You develop camaraderie that is unbreakable or hate for officers bent on risking your life for their gain... and you plot your revenge. You see buddies one minute then a broken men the next, random and senseless.

You follow their lives as a collective unit as well as individually which can be a problem for the reader as there is little continuity to the story.

It was a decent portrayal of the Vietnam war but as I went further and further into the novel I felt dragged down by the futility of it all. Not a fun read but I guess one that should be read.

I have a number of caveats about this book. It's more of a paean to the author's own culture than a true history, and as such, it presents some pretty sweeping generalizations. Some would challenge his readings of Scots-Irish and American history or even be offended by them. It might be, as I've seen in other reviews, that Webb's narrative is "self-indulgent" or a "mythologizing" of Scots-Irish and Southern cultures.

But for all that, I truly enjoyed reading it. Even though my forebears settled farther North than most of Webb's subjects, I saw traces of my own family throughout. And I definitely appreciated his passionate effort to help readers see the heart of a culture that too few try to understand or respect. For that reason alone, I found it a highly worthwhile read. I learned a lot.

Quite a realistic and moving account of what it was like for Marines serving in Vietnam in the 1960s.

When this came out in paperback the cover made it look like a bodice-ripper. But it appears that he was considered a major new writer. Now he is US Senator and writes influential non-fiction.½

Substance: MacArthur and the occupation of Japan, centered around the prosecution of Japanese general Yamashita for massacres in Manila, of which he appeared to be innocent. Intrigue and ego abound. Yamashita's position is similar to Thomas More's: despite doing what is right, if the King wants your head that's what happens. Detailed account of the rigging of the trial, the political reasons for it, MacArthur's personal vendetta, and the dilemmas of the junior staff.
Yamashita comes off best of all the characters, even though MacArthur's flaws are probably inseparable from his genius (although that doesn't excuse his illegal and unethical actions).

Yamashita's trial is mirrored by the forced resignation of the Emperor's minister who took the fall for the court, regarding the prosecution of the war.

Webb knows his material thoroughly and gives an insider's view of the Japanese culture and mindset contrasted with the Western viewpoint. He claims that all historical events are accurate, and reveals some that are not common knowledge except to students of the period. He clearly thinks MacArthur is an arrogant, vindictive skunk who could have done a better job before leaving the Philippines in the first place, and at points afterward.

Style: Straightforward and intelligible. Some personal digressions make Webb's own views clear. Narrator reminds me of Nick Gatsby: too self-centered to be truly sympathetic.

NOTES:
p. 111: the politics of surrender.
p. 132: quoting Goethe, "Whenever one is polite in German, one lies."
p. 148: religious differences - shame is not the same as conscience; see p. 254 also.
p. 151: "Never give an order tha cannot be enforced."
p. 167: a scale of atrocities (3 types), see also 169-172
p. 180: Japan has a different style of politics, but there are still manipulators.

p.

Robert Lee Hodges, Jr. joins the marines in keeping with his family history of serving in the military. It was said that if there were no Vietnam, he'd have to invent it.
We learn about Hodges doing well in Marine officer training and shipped to Vietnam. Once there he's stationed "in country" and we meet the rest of his unit.
James Webb does a nice job in describing the hell that was Vietnam and still give us a feel for the men who fought and died there.
Snake, named for his tattoo has a low level job. One day he sees the Marine motto, "Death Before Dishonor" and has it tattooed and then joins the Marines. His fearlessness and leadership of the unit in a main part of the story.
Will Goodrich was the college man. While many friends were running to Canada or going to grad school to escape the draft, Will leaves Harvard and joins up. It is from his point of view that we see many of the battle scenes and the death and injury that surrounds the unit and what it can do to a person.
These men and others are surrounded by enemies. Is the farmer in the nearby village, really a farmer or VC? It's impossible to tell.
Sgt Austin joins the unit and wants to bring it the spit and polish that works in the states but is rediculous in front line action.
During one battle, one of his men has had enough and flips a grenade near enough to injure the sgt. and remove him from the unit, but not kill him.
It is difficult to comprehend the death and inhumanity that surrounds these men who are really just out of high school in many cases. Webb does it well. The novel has been compared to "All Quiet on the Western Front" and like that novel, does well in telling the horrors of war.

Very well written book. Interesting characters, and exciting action.

Excellent book. If you really want to get the feel of the horrors of war read this one. it'll stay with you long after you finnish.

Mildly interesting. Perhaps it explains why my Elliott ancester reinlisted so many times in the Civil War.

Webb outlines the warlike spirit of the Scots-Irish as he tells their history. I enjoyed the earlier parts of the book which were based on research far more than the latter parts which were more of a personal memoir. The author does offer insights into the cultures of Appalachia and the South. The reader can see how the Scots-Irish settlers shaped these cultures.½

3414. Fields of Fire A Novel, by James Webb (read Mar 5, 2001) Obviously this book was read due to my reading of The Nightingale's Song. The book's writing was discussed at some length therein, and was written before Webb became Secretary of the Navy. While it is fiction it is so based on Webb's experience in Vietnam that it conveys to me a high degree of authenticity. Some might think this a right wing tract, but it is more thought-provoking than such, and Webb is not your run-of-the-mill hawk by any means. I found this an extremely powerful and unforgettable book. In the area of Vietnam fiction, this book would appear to rank high.½

2422. A Sense of Honor, by James Webb (read Mar 20, 2001) This is Webb's second novel, and tells of four days at the Naval Academy in February of 1968. Webb is not the writer that Pat Conroy is, and so this book is not the literary feast that The Lords of Discipline (which does for The Citadel what this book does for the Naval Academy) is, but it is a powerful story, repulsive as the language and utter sexual amorality of the characters are. This book was easy to read and one did not want to stop reading, and it was a compelling story, albeit more approving of the "old discipline" which Conroy portrayed less favorably.

3903. The Emperor's General a Novel by James Webb (read 25 June 2004) I was much impressed by Webb's first two books, Fields of Fire (read 5 Mar 2001) and A Sense of Honor (read 20 Mar 2001) but this is the first I have read by him since then. This tells of General MacArthur when the central character becomes his aide in 1944 and stays with him in the first days of his time in Japan. While one is not sure how much is true, much seems accurate. If you read the Supreme Court opinion in Application of Yamashito, 327 U.S. 1 (1946) and the dissents therein you will have a good background for the book. There is a love story which is soap operay but not too distracting from the interesting parts of the book. I think Webb is a good writer, myself.