CITIZEN SAILORS: The U.S. Naval Reserve in War and Peace

by William R. Kreh ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 12, 1969

This is a glowing red-white-and-blue report on our ""instant Navy,"" some 500,000 men and women now participating in the various phases of the Naval Reserve program, directed with computerized efficiency by the Naval Reserve Manpower Center in fulfillment of its motto: ""The right men in the right billets on time."" There's plenty of information to impress citizen civilians with our mobilization muscle -- the makeup, shapeup, and possible call-up of our backup naval forces. In the initial chapters fifteen-year Navy Times veteran Kreh banks repeatedly on the pseudosensationalism of secretive war games citizen sailors play -- ""Unknown to most Americans, a hunter-killer drama... unfolds nearly every weekend off both coasts of the U.S. and in the Gulf of Mexico"" -- and of the Clark Kent-like double identities of Weekend Warriors -- ""One night a week, however, he slips into a dress blue uniform and heads for the Brooklyn Navy Yard..."" The punch for the final sections on the efforts of active Reservists in Vietnam (there were more than 100,000 Reservists on active fleet duty around the world before the much-Publicized partial mobilization of 1968) is provided by piling on Medal-of-Honor and other-award-winning stories of bloody heroism.

Pub Date: Oct. 12, 1969

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: McKay

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1969

Categories: NONFICTION