1 comments about Combat Reporter: Don Whitehead's World War II Diary And Memoirs.

1. Edited by University of Tennessee-Knoxville teacher John B. Romeiser, Combat Reporter: Don Whitehead's World War II Diary and Memoirs is the true story of two-time Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Don Whitehead, who served the Associated Press in 1942 by covering the Allied drive against Erwin Rommel's tanks in North Africa, in Whitehead's own words. Collecting and organizing Whitehead's personal journal and unfinished memoir with the rare editor's note in brackets for clarity, Combat Reporter covers events that Whitehead witnessed from 1942-1943 in Cairo, Libya, Tunisia, and Sicily. Combat Reporter offers an evenhanded, front-lines view of the European Theater and an unforgettable self-portrait of a one-of-a-kind reporter. A foreword by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Rick Atkinson and an afterword by Whitehead's colleague Command Sergeant Major Benjamin Franklin (U.S. Army, Ret.) round out this highly recommended memoir.

No comments about The Red Inn.

2 comments about Where War Lives: A Journey into the Heart of War.

1. As a Somalia veteran and well aware of how dangerous a mob could be, I had always wondered what Watson was thinking when he was the lone American in the middle of a seething mob of Africans who were tearing an American corpse apart. His description of the event is so powerful, I felt like I was back on Mogadishu's streets with him, seeing what he saw and feeling his fear, not of just being killed, but of being torn apart. Four other journalists had been dealt with that way by a Somali mob three months before the Black Hawk Down firefight and he presumed the same thing would happen to him. Not only does he take the pictures and manage to get away, but actually went back a second time to take more pictures in case his editor didn't accept the first batch because they showed the corpse's genitals.
   
   Watson then goes on to describe other war zones he reported on: the Persian Gulf War, Rwanda, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. He describes his trade of being a war correspondent without apology as he travels from one slaughter to another, taking pictures and writing the stories of the soldiers and their victims. In the end, he finds that the only thing that gives meaning in a world of war, bloodshed, violence, death and destruction is love. It sounds like a simple answer, but Watson's journey into where war lives is profound.



2. This book is really thought provoking. It should be particularly interesting to photographers with a political interest.

No comments about Life on the Mississippi (History Alive!).

5 comments about Taking Heat: The President, the Press, and My Years In The White House.

1. Because I have always thought a press secretary has to be the strangest job in the white house, and because Ari Fleischer seemed the most sincere among the recent victims, I decided, out of curiousity, to read about his stint during the Bush presidency.
   
   It is almost painful to listen to a press briefing on cable television. How can the press secretary who is not a cabinet member, who is privy only to information the administration wants him/her to hear, possibly convey the exact meaning to the sometimes ridiculous questions as to what the President knows or thinks - really. All they can do is try not to give their own opinions and start a firestorm.
   
   I enjoyed this book because Ari Fleischer comes across as sincere. He describes his trips all over the world, meetings with foreign leaders, the aftermath of 9/11, events leading up to the Iraq war, engaging with the press until he simply "burned out" and had to resign. No wonder, a press secretary is on call 24/7 as news is being made all the time.
   
   The author has no axe to grind, no grand desire to diminish George Bush, and states he took a lot of heat and hopes he has shed some light. He feels the press can be too conflict-oriented most of the time, and I agree. Here is one press secretary who did his best during a tumultuous time in American history to interpret the news from the White House to the American people in a calm manner. A thankless task indeed. Forget party labels, just enjoy this book.



2. If you find yourself watching or reading the news and you are panicking about all that is wrong with the world, it would be helpful for you to read "Taking Heat". There are very few presidential press secretary's in the world and who better to explain how information given to the news is then reported by the news. Do yourself, your family and your friends a favor by reading and recommending this book.



3. Ari Fleischer should take a bow for having to deal with both sides...the White House and the media. It's a thankless job and you are always in hot water. I thought this was a good book. Not a great book. There were no major revelations and he slammed the media for being too liberal but overall, it was a book that is worth reading. It was interesting to read his first hand account of Sept. 11th and the lead up to both wars. Of course, he defends the reasoning behind most events but it was still interesting to hear why he believed that way. He talks about how he may know something but can't tell. However, what I found most fascinating is how much he didn't know because the Bush White House was afraid he would tell the press or they didn't want his views. Overall, it's worth buying the bargain book price book.



4. Fleischer was George W. Bush's Press Secretary from 2001 through 2003, facing the White House press daily through some of the most tumultuous times in American history including the aftermath of the bitterly contested 2000 election and of course September 11.
   
   This memoir of the time, which could have been a quickly-assembled hack job, is instead thoughtful and interesting. Fleischer provides just enough personal information to frame his story (New York city kid who grew up liberal in a family of Democrats), spending more time describing the more important and interesting interplay between White House staff and the press.
   
   Fleischer's key points about the press are that it is
   
   --conflict based (its not news if it doesn't involve conflict)
   --deadline driven (at the cost of fact-checking and completeness)
   --homogeneously hampered (almost exclusively produced and controlled by liberal and Democratic writers and editors).
   
   He backs his ideas up with examples, including some he used from the press briefing floor in daily combat with the press.
   
   With those caveats, Fleischer expresses his respect and admiration for the press honestly and without rancor or reservation. Likewise he describes his admiration for Bush and his policies, words which have more impact in the light of the intervening years of Bush bashing that has become universal in the press and among liberals and Democrats, and even amongst a fair number of former Bush supporters in his own party.



5. Ari provides an interesting book in his autobiography as President Bush's White House Press Secretary. I always hate to review books like this because they are so politically charged and ideologues on either side tend to get in a huff over what you say. I will endeavor to keep this as neutral as possible. This book sets out to accomplish many objectives but only hits half of them. First and foremost it is one of the best looks at the role of the press secretary and the sheer stress the job has on a person. Whether you like or hate President Bush there is no one who can deny that the role of press secretary is a hard job especially under a tight lipped and secretive white House. Andy Card's goal as chief of staff was to keep leaks to a minimum which frustrates the press leaving their only source of information the press secretary. When the press secretary is instructed not to discuss military matters it becomes even more adversarial. One of the interesting things learned from the book is what viewpoint the Press Secretary is supposed to have. I found it fascinating that he is only there to represent the views of the president and that does not necessarily have to be the wishes of the branches of government that report to the president.
   
   One of the other objectives was to provide a critical narrative of the press and give insight into the White House Press Crops. I found his look at the White House Press fascinating and he really does put you inside the room of the toughest reporters in the United States. He illustrates well his points about the adversarial nature of the press and the desire of the press to create conflict which leads to stories. Many times the same questions are asked over and over hoping for a slip that the Press Secretary cannot afford to give. One of the angles that I think he does handle poorly is the bias of the press. While there are voluminous studies to show that the press is slanted right Ari seems to not acknowledge that all media is biased in one direction or another. The White House press does not give passes to any president. People today do not trust the news they get from the press and rightly so due to the biases that are present be they Fox News or MSNBC. While he highlights the point of on the liberal media it is done far better by Benard Goldberg in his book Bias.
   
   Finally Ari tries to make a defense of President Bush and his policies/leadership style. Some of his book seems to be aimed at knocking down the arguments in the Price of Loyalty. While this is another viewpoint again the truth probably lies in the middle. Some of his defenses of trying to shift blame to the press for starting up the Iraq war are fairly ludicrous. Ari does not sit in on any of the national security briefings and the president preferred himself to comment on those matters leaving Ari in a hard position to comment on them after the fact. One of the things he does refute well that many agree with is the loyalty that Bush shows to those who are loyal to him. There is a clear look that Bush's leadership style does work within his White House and he is respected by the staff. Ari also seems to take it upon himself to set the record straight and show the country that Bush did not think of the war in Iraq in a vacuum that many other people including the press also had the same idea along the way. He is largely successful in this although he glosses over one of the critical mistakes. The landing on the USS Lincoln with the banner Mission Accomplished was one of the great errors in the press of fighting the war and it is skipped over here. I think Ari is right in saying that the press views any war that is long as a quagmire and Vietnam and any war where we win quickly is Desert Storm and must be over in a week. There is a lack of reality by the press which filters to the country.
   
   Overall an excellent book and very well done. Ari provides unique insight into the Bush White House and while it is biased it does not make it useless. He raises critical questions that require issues to be reexamined and while he is loathe to critize his former boss for the things he did wrong we still see a good look at Bush the man and the President.

No comments about Memoirs of the Bastille.

1 comments about Sixty-Four Years as a Writer.

1. For more than six decades, Bill Gulick successfully pursued a career as a writer and author. He has written twenty-seven novels, eight books of non-fiction, as well as several plays. A regular contributor to 'The Saturday Evening Post' and other national magazines, many of his published stories became major motion pictures starring such Hollywood luminaries as Burt Lancaster and Jimmy Stewart. His friends and associates in literary circles and the publishing industry are legion and range from A. B. Guthrie, to Elmer Kelton, to William McCleod Raine. Gulick has also made a name for himself as a leading authority on Pacific Northwest History."Sixty-Four Years As A Writer" is a remarkable, memorable, personal history of his life and career from his days in Oklahoma during the Great Depression to his current status as one of America's premier Western authors. Very highly recommended reading (especially for anyone contemplating a professional writing career for themselves), this is an intrinsically fascinating memoir laced with anecdotes and told in a superbly articulate and engaging narrative style for which he is so well known.

4 comments about Our Brother's Keeper: My Family's Journey through Vietnam to Hell and Back.

1. I am a military history buff. I especially love to read books written by people who were there, or in this case a person who was greatly effected by the events described. I picked this book up on a whim from a book store and the writing style dragged me into the story. It is truly unique in that it is written by the brother of a Marine that died in Vietnam and that it really does not focus too much on the war. It does cover the basics of that era, but more focuses on the effects the war had back home, as well as the lasting effects on his family.
   
   I am glad that Mr. Smith finally found a start to his healing and was able to write this book to share with the public.



2. About six weeks ago I was told I HAD to read this book for a book club that I am in. I am a romance/mystery junkie and put off reading what I felt would be a depressing WAR book...How wrong was I? This book, which reads like a great story instead of nonfiction, was riveting and inspiring with as much to say about family and interpersonal relations as it does about the Vietnam war. I laughed at Mr. Smith's memories of a very human warrior as well as cried at the manifestations of sorrow and guilt. I am a 31 year old woman who is as far removed from this war as one can get and yet the book brought home the personal and very unpolitical side of this very confusing part of our history. I was extremely thankful that Mr. Smith could share his experiences with me.



3. Jedwin Smith (no relation, but I was once his boss at the Atlanta newspaper where we both worked) has written a spellbinding account of how his brother's death in Vietnam (remember that war?) impacted his family and fueled his own decline into alcohol and depression. Without bitterness or animosity, he relates the unraveling of his family and eventually tells of how he and his siblings came to cope with their brother's death, and to mend their lives and relationships with each other. Part and parcel of the story is his climb from the depths, aided by Vietnam War vets who knew his brother in the field and as always, by the love and strength of his devoted wife, June. Don't think of this as a "war" book. It's not. Rather, this is the story of human relationships, told with insight won the hard way, that will send you to Vietnam War Web sites/books to knock the dust off your memories of that era. Jedwin's a natural-born storyteller and this book will grab you from the first page.



4. This is the kind of well-written book you'll read in 24 hours but think about for weeks. Its the gut-wrenching story of a family suffering through the loss of a beloved son/brother to the Vietnam War. The author, Jedwin Smith, gives us a rare insight into the long-term effects a family endures and also allows us to go along on his painful and emotional journey toward some sense of healing. Without disclosing elements of the book, be advised there is a reconciliation late in the book that is unique, remarkable and inspirational.
   We must never forget the sacrifices veterans made for our country, but this book also reminds us to never forget the sacrifices the families of these veterans made as well.

5 comments about Unfinished Business: One Man's Extraordinary Year of Trying to Do the Right Things.

1. I first heard about the book on wpoc radio the author was on the show. after listening to him i had to get the book. i went straight to amazon. I saw the book it shipped right out and i had it in 2 days. perfect! I'm reading the book and so far i love it.



2. Book Overview
   
   Lee Kravitz was a self-described workaholic, who freely admits that he let his job dominate his life at the expense of his family. So when he loses his job as a magazine editor at the age of 54, it is a wake-up call to him. Stunned and shamed by the loss of the his job--the one thing that provided his identity for so long--Kravitz finds himself at loose ends.
   
   His wife suggests he attend a yoga retreat to help him deal with his feelings of loss and hopelessness. At the retreat, he realizes that he can take a year to take stock of himself and become the type of person he would really like to be. He ends up realizing that to move forward, he needs to take care of unfinished business from his past. He then compiles a list of ten areas in his life where he has unfinished business to take care of. These tasks include things such as:
   
   * finding a long-lost relative
   * making a long-overdue condolence call
   * reaching out to a distant friend
   * letting go of a grudge
   * healing a rift in the family.
   
   Each chapter of the book details the story behind each item of unfinished business and how Kravitz goes about tying up these loose ends in his life.
   
   My Thoughts
   
   It is a shame that I read this book right after The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind. Both are inspirational memoirs, but the comparison really ends right there. Whereas I felt uplifted, inspired and awed by hearing about William Kamkwamba's life, I was not too inspired by Mr. Kravitz's story. For one, it was difficult to empathize with him. Although I can sympathize with the feelings of loss and shame that can accompany a job loss in middle age, Kravitz was not plunged into a difficult financial situation. He had money enough to live comfortably for a year--as well as maintain two residences (an apartment in New York City and a country house). Although he might have felt a loss of identity, he didn't want for something to eat or have to worry about providing for his family--a situation uncommon for most people who are victims of downsizing or layoffs.
   
   Secondly, much of the unfinished business that Kravitz feels compelled to attend is a result of his own workholism and consistent choice to let his work take priority over everything else. By putting his work before people for years and years, Kravitz is really the architect of many of his own problems. He briefly talks about the impact that his long work hours had on his family and his wife Elizabeth, yet not one of the his unfinished business tasks directly involve spending more time with his family. Although some of his attempts to make peace with his past tangentially affect his relationships with his immediate family (for example, he coaches his son's baseball team as a way of reconnecting with his father and an old friend), much of his unfinished business involves taking trips to various locations to meet up with and make peace with long-lost friends and family members. Part of me kept thinking: "You admit that you ignored your family for years by putting work first and now you are traveling all over the country to visit people you haven't seen for 20 years in order to lay to rest some issues from your past?!? Seems to me like you should start with your wife and kids first." To me, it felt as if Kravitz chose to put this personal project of completing unfinished business before his wife and kids once again.
   
   I also didn't get emotionally involved with Kravitz's story. His writing--while competent and clear--just didn't connect emotionally with me. It felt a bit dry and distant. Perhaps his journalism background is to blame. It could also be his emotional make-up is more "masculine" than "feminine," which tends result in a more "this is what happened" approach than "this is what I felt" approach. Although Kravitz is candid and open about his own shortcomings, I didn't feel a sense of connection with him. In a memoir, I think that is essential to truly enjoying the book.
   
   I feel like I'm being very harsh on this book, and I'm not entirely sure why. The stories that Kravitz tells are somewhat interesting and filled with good advice and intentions. I suspect that many people will relate to the things that Kravtiz works on throughout the book. How many times have we put off making a condolence call because we felt awkward about it or didn't know what to say? How many of us made a promise that we never kept and then regretted for years afterward? How often do we really go back to thank our mentors and let them know the value of their guidance? I do think there is value in taking care of unfinished business before our time here on earth runs out. I'm sure most of us would benefit from taking some time to think through our own lives to identify our own areas of unfinished business and taking steps to resolve them. In thinking back on my own life, there are a few areas that I would like to tie up into neater packages. But I do think the key is to not let the truly important moments go by and to keep your priorities in focus every day.
   
   My Final Recommendation
   
   Although I like the idea of taking time to resolve any unfinished business in our lives and the book is competently written, I wasn't emotionally drawn into Kravitz's story. However, I could envision a certain type of reader benefiting from this book--for example, an emotionally distant professional male might relate to Kravitz's story and find more inspiration and value in it than I did. In addition, readers who have a lot of unfinished business of their own might find much of value in Kravtiz's journey and approach to tying up his own loose ends.



3. Having also been laid off from a corporate job after 10 years of servitude, I found the premise of this book to be one that attracted me more, at the beginning, as a manual for using your time to complete whatever it was you started but couldn't finish because of work. I was thinking more about fixing this or that, finishing projects, reading that stack of books etc. I must say I was surprised that this was much more than what I'd expected and 1,000 times better than Eat Pray Love for many reasons. In the book, Lee Kravitz details a year in his life after layoff where, in sorting through the objects of his past, he begins to face the things he either left behind, buried deep inside or simply, was too darned scared of to deal with during other times in his life. Lee's list included relatively small matters like repaying a $600 loan to a friend he traveled with in youth but had lost track of to (emotionally) larger matters like expressing condolences to another friend whose daughter had been killed during an ambush in Iraq. In the process, he strengthens bonds with his children, wife and father (this was more of an understanding and acceptance of his father), rekindled dormant friendships and renewed relationships with extended family members through his efforts to bring some cheer into the life of a long-lost relative. I think what affected me most was his industriousness in completing his list (along the lines of completing the tasks at hand, one-by-one-by-one-by-one) without underestimating the therapeutic benefit of focusing on something other than yourself (which could get dicey when one loses a job). The reason I say I found this so much better than Eat Pray Love was because the writer began his journey from home base without the luxury of a new environment from which to regroup. He tackled each item bit by bit while coming to terms with and building upon the life he had already created. There was no running away with a few hundred thousand dollars and an assignment. It was Lee Kravitz surrounded by the past, his fears and lots of lost time to make up for.
   
   There are a number of lessons which can be gleaned from reading this, but I find I have to comment on Mr. Kravitz's writing ability which I found refreshingly flawless.
   
   I can't recommend this book highly enough. It really inspired me to take an accounting of my own life to see what may have been overlooked and what opportunities there are to make amends.
   
   Please read this.



4. I enjoyed the concept behind this book, of fully living your life when a turn i lie happens without your planning for it, such as what happens in the book. Suddenly being without a job, and having to reevaluate life and your place in it is challenging. The author writes about the experience, and it sheds light on living life to its fullest, and to a person's fullest potential. I feel the author did a great job doing this, and reached out to me as I read. Great book with great life lessons.



5. Everyone has unfinished business. And it generally does not appear on our personal radar screen unless life comes to a hard stop, and for many, it is too late.
   
   I observed this first hand in the early 1980s as President of American Hospital Supply's Heyer-Schulte Division when we entered the surgical oncology market. I had several opportunities to visit many of our country's leading Comprehensive Cancer Centers (Sloan-Kettering, MD Anderson, Fred Hutchinson, et al) and met cancer patients from all age groups who were facing death. I gained a number of valuable insights including "taking care of business...particularly, unfinished business."
   
   Award winning journalist and author, Lee Kravitz, in "Unfinished Business" shares his journey of "taking care of business" after being fired from his position as editor-in-chief of "Parade" and life came to a hard stop. Fortunately for Kravitz, he had both the time and resources to address his unfinished business.
   
   Kravitz admits to being a addicted to work and failing to be a full participant in life, both his and his family's. He notes that "addicts are more likely than others to lie, steal, cheat, and commit adultery. Imagine how much bad karma an addict carries around in his bag. Imagine how much hard work and willpower it takes for him to lessen his load."
   
   Kravitz begins by seeking out Aunt Fern, an aunt who was in his camp as a young man, but, with the family's concern over her mental health, abandoned with the family. She had been left to her own world, a special-care facility, for years with only one visitor in the last fourteen.
   
   His second objective was to reach out to a childhood friend, Andre Parhamovich, the star right fielder on his baseball team that won the Ohio State Championship. Andre's daughter, Andi, was killed in an ambush by Sunni insurgents in Iraq. Kravitz struggled to send condolences but never got anything off.
   
   The journey continues with Kravitz paying a bill that was unpaid for years, seeking a Pakistani roommate after 26 years of not replying to the roommate's invitations, trying to resolve what was behind a high school teammates bullying of him (anti-semite?), reconnecting with a spiritual mentor, visiting an old friend who marched to a different drummer and became a Bishop in the Greek Orthodox Church, fulfilling a long ago promise to provide books to Kenyan refugee camp, and most importantly, repairing a relationship with his own father.
   
   Each story is poignant and will stir up memories of an unfinished past for all of us. Kravitz observes that "the situations that become our unfinished business are messy and complicated. They also involve our deepest fears...Those fears weighed me down and held me back both at work and in my relationships. They contributed to my becoming someone who worked compulsively, putting my job ahead of everything else."
   
   Our unfinished business is not "about resting in peace," but about lifting those anchors that keep us stuck, allowing us to move forward and reach our potential.

2 comments about A Life in Letters: Ann Landers' Letters to Her Only Child.

1. Unless you worship Ann Landers for years and know her background to some degree, this book may be quite anecdotal and a gathered pieces of personal events.



2. Growing up I regularly read Ann Landers' column. I can even remember my favorite ones --- the one with the meatloaf recipe and the one about how to hang a roll of toilet paper. Living in a small town in New Jersey, I got a new perspective on the world from letters signed by people with signatures like Desperate in Dallas and Confused in Cincinnati. Sometimes I would howl at what people were asking while other times I was shocked at the depths of the problems that people shared.

   Reading the column each day I formed a picture of Landers. When she passed away in 2002, I read the tributes to her and realized this was the end of an era.

   A LIFE IN LETTERS: Ann Landers Letters to Her Only Child showed me another side of Landers. For here were the letters that personally defined her ---- those she wrote to her daughter Margo over forty-four years. Broken up into four sections, the book tells the story of a close mother/daughter relationship. Here, again in her own words, we come to know Esther "Eppie" Lederer (Landers' real name).

   Whether she was giving Margo advice, checking in to see how she was or lavishing praise, Landers wrote with the tone of a well-meaning friend. The excitement that Landers felt in sharing her life with Margo is touchingly evident. Many of her notes to Margo were hurried pieces while others were long and leisurely, but all were personal and laced with love.

   Margo has said, "I loved putting this collection together. And strange as it may sound, reading them all, together, was an entirely different experience than seeing them one at a time. A LIFE IN LETTERS - even for me - is like watching two lives unfolding."

   The book is punctuated with notes from Margo that give background to the letters. At one point in her introduction she was astounded to learn that her mom had saved all of her letters, just as she had saved her mom's. It's clear that this writing ---and their relationship --- meant a lot to them both.

   Readers also get a look at another side of Landers. We see a woman who was politically active and had a strong business sense. She had access to the powerful and the famous because of who she was --- people such as Walter Cronkite, Hubert Humphery and Cardinal Joseph Bernadin. She also believed in many causes and supported them with her time and her opinions.

   There is enough reference to the feud between Landers and her twin sister, who penned the Dear Abby column for years, to be honest, but Landers takes the high road and remains a real lady.

   Right after Landers' death, I clipped her meatloaf recipe from the paper and made it. After closing Margo's book I vowed to write more letters to my sons. Last week I was passing my older son's room and saw a recent IM session between us printed and tacked onto the wall. Sure instant communication like that is wonderful, but the preservation of letters like those in this book reminds me how much history we lose when we do not write.

   Whether you are a Landers fan or just relish the chance to voyeur a very special relationship as it grows over the years, A LIFE IN LETTERS is a wonderful read.

   --- Reviewed by Carol Fitzgerald