An impressive and eloquent account of a soldier’s life and culture.
An American Army veteran’s memoir of his experiences in the European theatre of World War II.
This excellent memoir details the author’s life as a dogface in the Third Infantry Division of the U.S. Army. Starting his career on March 12, 1943, with the war already in full swing, the young Brown recounts his basic training exploits in an almost halcyon tone. This lack of pretension or existential dread will surprise many readers weaned on Vietnam-era satire and the first 40 minutes of Full Metal Jacket. Brown delivers his choice experiences matter-of-factly and makes no apologies for doing so. However, into these sunny memories Brown deftly weaves the telling wisps of death. When digging an ominously measured 6x6x6-foot hole in the ground as punishment during training, Brown discovers a small cache of ordinance. After Brown finds a stray grenade, his commanding officer orders him to dig more and see what else is there. It’s a perfect image with the young untested man already digging a grave-like hole and discovering the dangers of war can be found even in South Carolina. This subtle style advances forth as Brown’s company learns proper grenade throwing technique; a flub during training results in nothing more than a few nervous seconds, but without overt exposition, it’s understood that it might have been his first experience with a casualty of war. Brown moves the reader brusquely to Italy and here the war proper begins. The grind and anxiety of guard duty, and in perhaps the most intense and confessional moment, Brown reluctantly describes one of the few nagging dreams he still has that’s inspired by the war. It’s about as gory as he gets in the memoir and also as honest, which gives the narrative an incredible dimension. Throughout the memoir, Brown explains that the charge of his book comes from the many children of veterans looking for information about their very reticent fathers. So here is an honest and articulate summary of experience that can’t be so easily explored by the calcified clichés of popular culture. Brown admits his generation is in its twilight, and so these chronicles are more important and rewarding than ever.
An impressive and eloquent account of a soldier’s life and culture.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2011
ISBN: 978-1456853969
Page Count: 380
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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