A classic account of service, duty, and sacrifice.
Smith’s (Rules & Tools for Leaders, 2013) biography honors a decorated World War II Marine.
Jimmie Dyess was the epitome of an all-American hero: he served as a student cadet leader at military school, excelled on the football field, and received the Carnegie Medal for civilian heroism for saving a drowning woman. During the Depression, he was a young father and served in both the Army and Marine Reserves. As the U.S. built up its military in anticipation of the country’s entrance into WWII, Dyess was called up as an active-duty Marine officer and eventually placed in command of an infantry battalion. Dyess led his men into combat against the Japanese military in the battle for the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. On the island of Roi Nampur, Dyess volunteered to move forward with the advance line, rescued a group of stranded Marines, and ultimately lost his life. These actions posthumously earned him the Congressional Medal of Honor. Smith provides a vivid account of the Marine’s successful assault on Roi Nampur and of Dyess’ final acts of heroism. Smith’s wife is Dyess’ daughter, and Dyess is clearly a personal hero of Smith’s. That being said, Smith’s book is by no means mere hagiography, and Dyess’ mistakes and shortcomings are noted. What’s more, Smith approaches his subject with a keen historian’s eye. Valuable historical context is provided in the form of black-and-white photographs and fascinating detours into the lives of figures such as Andrew Carnegie, Fiorello La Guardia, and Maj. Earl “Pete” Ellis. In this biography, the Marine Corps figures almost as prominently as Dyess himself; the institutional history of the Corps, from 1775 through to their crucial role in World War II, is thorough and interesting. In some ways, Smith’s book is without nuance: the virtues of the military and patriotism are never questioned, and Smith is a firm believer in the nobility of the “greatest generation.” Luckily, Smith has the research to back up his convictions.
A classic account of service, duty, and sacrifice.Pub Date: May 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4917-6691-0
Page Count: 220
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: June 25, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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