4 comments about Leave No Man Behind: Bill Bell and the Search for American POW/MIAs from the Vietnam War.

1. It was fascinating to read and learn from this author, who is multi-lingual and deeply immersed in Vietnamese culture and history, as
   well as American military experience. While the writing was not always as interesting as the subject matter, this book really brought home the passion and commitment of the author in finding out what happened to the many missing soldiers from the Vietnam War.



2. Leave No Man Behind had me griting me teeth and cussing. The stonewall that Bill Bell runs into time after time, yet keeps getting up for more is remakable. I've always knew the MIA / POW issue hasn't been dealth with directly and honorably by the ones having the power to do so. Bill Bell breaks it down in an intelligent way for the rest of us, he's been there, done that. From the Vietnamese using our missing troops to ferther their agenda and look like the innocent, to our own people covering their ass with a smile, Leave No Man Behind connects the dots for me and gives hope that all the soldiers lost in Viet Nam will be found.



3. "Leave No Man Behind" is the true guidepost to the painful saga of resolving the search for POWs and MIAs in Indochina. It should be required for anyone interested in the details and history of the quest. The author, a genuine hero, spent most of 20 years, 1973-1993, interviewing refugees, battling U.S. bureaucrats (military and civilian) and wrestling with Communist officials in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. He was also this country's senior field investigator, searching remote crash and burial sites for remains of U.S. military. Along the way he was actively involved in the final evacuation from Saigon in 1975. He learned several distinct Vietnamese dialects, the better to communicate/negotiate with the adversary. Few Americans would be that conscientious. Those of us who have followed and supported the search for POWs/MIAs all these years know how venally, dishonestly and even cruelly the Vietnamese have acted. They deny storing remains and then repatriate bodies with obvious evidence of chemical storage. They allow us to "investigate" crash sites that have been clearly sanitized in advance. Bodies are dug up, moved and reinterred. After payment of search fees, permits, excavation fees and other "costs", remains are found! And so it goes, on and on, year after frustrating year. But when Vietnamese act that way, they are being themselves! How can we explain or describe American officials, civilian and military, who descend to the same level? Mr.Bell makes it perfectly clear that a POW assignment was all too often a just soft "REMF" job. These guys did not want too many POWs being repatriated all at once. How would that look? The longer the searches went on, the longer the comfortable gigs. In the words of a previous reviewer, the whole deal was nothing more than a meal ticket. This reviewer has always suspected that we were own worst enemy and the list of "usual suspects" is long and sickening. There is no doubt in this quarter that these quislings would never want any American MIA found alive. They would be too frightened to explain the reappearance! One specific suspect on the list of lowlife Americans is President Carter, who tried very hard to underfund the original search efforts and nip them in the very bud. Another is not President Clinton but John Kerry. He was so in love with normalizing relations with North Vietnam that his so-called Senate Select Committee swept whitewashed the entire POW/MIA effort. All so his family owned company received exclusive American rights to real estate deals in North Vietnam. How Mr. Bell kept his calm and perspective dealing with so man cowardly and selfish Americans is a mystery. This review could continue at great length, but I'm sure my amazon friends have the picture clearly. In a review of Bernard Fall's "Street Without Joy", this observer closed by writing that the author would be "a great guy to have a few beers with". I feel the same about Mr. Bell except that he would not have to pay for a round. The author is a true American hero. I'll conclude this review by restating that "Leave No Man Behind" is required reading for anyone concerned with the resolution of the 1,845 men still missing in Indochina.



4. Whether or not a reader has the same take on the history of the POW-MIA issue as Bill Bell, most will be able to acknowledge that he took the issue to heart in a very active way. His commitment to the study of the languages of the region set him head and shoulders above the vast majority of NCOs and certainly all of the officers who were assigned to work the issue, and those linguistic skills for the most part served him very very well. Unfortunately, by the time Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia began to open up and the many years of almost hopeless interviews in refugee camps came to an end, the "issue" had devolved into a series of highly-publicized scams and silly bureaucratic turf struggles between bureaucracies with no missions, and inevitably was exploited by the odd politician or three. We ended up not serving the missing or their families as well as the naive among us would have expected. What was once a sacred cause degenerated into a comfortable meal ticket for many of those "involved," but in spite of all that, Bill often took stances which he knew would bring him his fair share of abuse. If anyone made an honest effort for an extended period of years, Bill did. Those that have hung on for decades sitting idle at the trough have much to answer for. Bill Bell was active in the pursuit of his life-defining mission, and that alone makes his writing worth our time and our respect.

1 comments about Beneath the Stainless Banner: With Selections from His Recollections of a Naval Life.

1. Review by James N. Vogler, Jr., editor Confederate Veteran. Most of us know the tale of that great Confederate raider the CSS Alabama and her illustrious Captain Raphael Semmes. The scourge of the Union merchant fleet, the Alabama sank over sixty Yankee vessels in her brief, but dramatic career. There have been countless books about the ship, including a fine account, Memoirs of Service Afloat by her captain. This volume provides an account of service on the Alabama from a slightly different angle. Beneath the Stainless Banner was written by John McIntosh Kell, the ship's executive officer, the man who ran the day to day operations of this deadly raider. The reader gets a feel for the inner workings of a sailing vessel on the high seas in search of its prey. While most of the book revolves around the Alabama and her exploits, Kell does write about his service on the CSS Sumter where he also served under Raphael Semmes. This book is actually a reproduction of the second volume of John Kell's memoir entitled Recollections of a Naval Life, Including the Cruises of the Sumter and Alabama published in 1900. R. Thomas Campbell has enhanced the work with footnotes and some photographs. This is an excellent account of life on a Confederate raider, and I recommend it to any of our readers whose interest is in the sea.

1 comments about Private Presley: The Missing Years - Elvis in Germany/Book and Cd.

1. Oh my, where to begin ! : )
   I just opened my still shrinkwrapped book of Private Presley today (had bought it years before, put it in a SAFE place and FORGOT about it, till now..that is (could kick myself.) It is a gorgeous, wonderful, funny and endearing little number with loads of great pics with a still relaxed Elvis in all his youthful GLORY! : )
   Any Elvis fan should have one, and now ..I do ! : )
   If anyone can still find a copy of this ( I am NOT selling mine, thankyouverymuch! ) BUY IT..it is worth every penny! The CD is wonderful..playful Elvis talking and singing spontaneously..well almost spontaneously LOL : ) Not that stiff stuff on American TV,Radio..no, no..just Elvis as we would all have probably seen him in our ..er..living rooms?? Oh, Yeah !!..Riiight! LOL : )
   But certainly the way we have WANTED to see and hear him!
   I wish people luck in finding this gem. Actually, there should just be another printing, I cannot believe that there are not more than just 100,000 fans of Elvis out there screaming for this book! : )
   Tracks include: I Gotta Woman, Tweedle Dee,Maybellene,That's All Right Mama, Blue Moon of Kentucky (my personal fave),There's Good Rockin' Tonight, Baby Let's Play house and those great interviews & just talkin' : )
   This book makes up for all those tell-all books out there that were unkind to Elvis! He was, after all, just a human, and probably wouldv'e love to live like one, given the chance. In Germany he had a freedom he would never experience here. As well, he never got back there, either.
   Anyway, great tribute to the greatest guy...Elvis Presley! : )
   If that Parker guy wouldv'e been smarter, he wouldv'e given Elvis some slack to just live a little, they both would have been better off and Elvis might still be alive !
   Bottom line..Buy it if you can find it! Nothing comes close to this book! : )

No comments about The Last Conquistador: Mansio Serra De Leguizamon and the Conquest of the Incas.

No comments about Air Combat: A History of Fighter Pilots.

3 comments about John C. Calhoun and the Price of Union: A Biography (Southern Biography).

1. In his opening remarks John Niven makes the promise that he would not undertake psychoanalysis of John C.Calhoun, Much to his credit, he is true to his word. What Niven has delivered is an eminently readable and straightforward account of South Carolina's greatest political figure. We forget all that he did: senator, secretary of war, secretary of state, and vice president, in a distinguished career that began in the early days of Madison's presidency and concluded during the Taylor-Fillmore administration, a span of nearly four decades.

   Niven's disclaimer, however, is telling. There is a tendency to use Calhoun's career as a sort of national inkblot. For constitutional scholars and ideologues of many stripes Calhoun's writings survive as either the last great stand of states rights or as a subversive manifesto for the tragic secession that would follow. For politicians and observers of human behavior, Calhoun is either the consummate patriot or his own worst enemy.

   From the data Niven provides, it can be said that while Calhoun may have been eccentric, he was not crazy. Everyone born in primitive eighteenth century America survived with a history, and Calhoun, born in 1782, was no exception. His family and his colony shared a history of terrible suffering at the hands of the British [those were Calhoun's people slaughtered in Mel Gibson's "The Patriot."] Calhoun himself was orphaned as a young teen and appears to have spent a studious but lonely existence until he studied law at Yale under the famous Timothy Dwight.

   Calhoun arrived home with his diploma just in time to ride a wave of strong Carolina resistance against the Virginia-New York axis that seemed to control presidential elections. This handsome, passionate, articulate favorite son soon found himself elected to Congress where he naturally became a leading advocate of war against the hated British. On June 18, 1812, Calhoun and other hawks got their war, but the thoughtful Calhoun quickly ascertained that the United States was woefully unprepared. Calhoun regretted his impetuousness, and nothing would absolve his guilt for this nasty war.

   Calhoun would do penance for his sins by serving as Secretary of War under Monroe. Niven commends him for an outstanding tenure during which Calhoun reformed the army's purchasing policies, developed stronger defense outposts in the west, and crafted an almost enlightened Indian policy. An ambitious man, Calhoun not unreasonably expected his War Department success to catapult him toward bigger and better things.

   But here one of the major themes of the book emerges: Calhoun was an unlucky politician. It was his bad fortune to reach his prime concurrently with an unusually large class of outstanding statesmen: Henry Clay, William Crawford, John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, Andrew Jackson, and Martin Van Buren, to name a few. While he could console himself with the role of "everybody's favorite second" in the 1824 election, that convoluted contest left him tainted goods in the eyes of many, and an outsider in the Adams cabinet to boot.

   Calhoun reluctantly threw his lot with Jackson in 1828, but by this date the South Carolinian was having long thoughts about his home region. Cotton prices were low, and protective tariffs seemed to him to exact a crushingly heavy toll from southern growers like himself. And although he shared some of Clay's enthusiasms for internal improvements, most notably transportation systems for the inner reaches of the Carolinas, Calhoun became increasingly suspicious and hostile of the federal government, dubious about its ability and will to protect slavery and Calhoun's idyllic picture of the agricultural southern life. A highly sensitive man, he internalized what he saw as the political treachery of Clay, Van Buren, and especially Crawford, who raised Calhoun-baiting to an art form, for reasons never precisely spelled out.

   Calhoun began to write prodigiously on the subject of states rights and federal encroachments. As Niven observes, his writings were alternately brilliant and contradictory. Potboiler states rights speeches and pamphlets were common in America as the young nation sorted itself out. But how far could a politician really go on the matter of a state's autonomy? Until the Jackson era there seemed to have been a gentleman's agreement that the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions represented the boundary of political good taste. Calhoun crossed that line in his defense of nullification, increasingly preoccupied by perceived threats to his beloved South Carolina, In doing so Calhoun lost his national political base and a sense of the national pulse. No longer viable as even a regional candidate for the presidency, he assisted President Tyler by his skillful negotiating with Great Britain on the Oregon border question. But he objected to the Mexican War, not on humanitarian grounds but because he feared the socioeconomic consequences of the acquisition of Mexican territory, i.e., new free soil states. He was correct in his assessment that the consequences of the Mexican War would bring political turmoil to the United States. He had few horses to trade on the floor of congress as the Wilmot Proviso was debated, but his style till the end was magnificent.

   From Niven's account it is fair to say that Calhoun was never a universally recognized spokesman for the South during his own lifetime. The Richmond Junto despised him. Unionists were still a majority in the South at the time of his death in 1850. Moderate southern businessmen even in his home state found his philosophy antiquated and at times deleterious to their state's economy. Many found him unbearably pedantic. Only later, as the nation polarized, would his political philosophy become a revered creed for those who dared to think the unthinkable.

   Niven's work is a fine presentation for the casual reader and a more than adequate primer for those eager to delve into the mind and works of the consummate antebellum apostle of states' rights.




2. John Niven, professor emeritus of American History at the Claremont Graduate School, has shed new light on a statesman that history has long viewed as just another inconsistent headstrong Southerner, John C. Calhoun. Niven convinces the reader that this prominent politician of the antebellum south was much more consistent and levelheaded in both his public and private lives than his typical portrayal as a protean, stubborn hot-head from South Carolina would suggest. A lifelong advocate of the South, John C. Calhoun served as a member of Congress at the time of the War of 1812, secretary of war under James Monroe, vice president with John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, secretary of state under John Tyler, and then as a senator from South Carolina until he died in 1850. The key to Niven's success in bringing to life to this "cast iron man" is drawing on Calhoun's personal life and experiences in order to gain persuasive insight into the motives and stances of his political career. (back cover) Instead of telling the classic tale of Calhoun's shift from nationalism, during the War of 1812 and the tariff of 1816, to sectionalism and states' rights in later years, on the issues of the protective tariff and slavery, Niven convincingly exerts the original contention that Calhoun had always stood behind individual liberty and states rights. In Calhoun's view, as supported by his own papers, his apparent nationalistic support of the war and the tariff of 1816 was actually an effort to "provide for the common defense and to utilize the resources of all to strengthen the states as individual entities." (p. 127) When national policies began to benefit northern states at the expense of his home, the South, is when his states' rights sentiment began to manifest itself as sectionalism. The weakness of Niven's otherwise masterful biography is that "as a northerner, born and bred in New York and Connecticut," Niven is never able to completely shake his own predisposition against slavery and present Calhoun's feelings on the issue as being valid views with their own arsenal of support. (p. xv) Although he obviously attempts to be completely objective, Niven's own views show through in his portrayal of the slavery problem as Calhoun's resistance against the antislavery movement as opposed to the antislavery movement threatening Calhoun's southern way of life and ingrained teachings. John Niven's somewhat unconventional view of the career and motives of one of the leading spokesmen for the Old South, John C. Calhoun, is convincingly and understandably expressed in this original biography. He succeeds in depicting Calhoun as a very consistent man with a humanity and complexity entirely devoted to the preservation of the South.



3. Prof. Niven's book fails on a number of counts, but mainly on that of familiarity with the sources of Calhoun's political thought. For example, in describing Calhoun's indebtedness to the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, Niven says that neither document contemplated action by an individual state. To correct this impression, one need only consult Jefferson's draft of the Kentucky Resolutions; how anyone who had even read this five-page document could see it as anything other than a threat to interfere with enforcement of the Alien and Sedition Acts within the boundaries of Kentucky is beyond me. The book is full of similiar evidence of Niven's failure to acquaint himself with even the most basic sources. Try Bartlett's Calhoun biography, instead.

No comments about Moon Princess, The: Memories of the Shan States.

2 comments about Warrior: ...By Choice ...by Chance.

1. At seventeen Jack leads a rifle squad and, later, a rifle platoon in some of the worst figting in the Southwest Pacific Area. You will marvel at extra ordinary events. You will experience his grief as comrades and companions are wounded, killed and lost to the Japanese, Korean and Chinese enemy.
   Then you will rejoice with him in his successes, in the deep friendships that come his way; and for a loving, praying girl he marries, and a Savior he knows. His brief stay as a POW to the Chinese will wrench your heart.



2. Jack was my battalion S-2 sergeant. His narrative of events describe the frustration & problems faced by units poorly prepared for fighting an enemy we couldn''t understand. It's a must read for the untrained as well as the professional soldier.

5 comments about American Fuehrer: George Lincoln Rockwell and the American Nazi Party.

1. I enjoyed this book and felt it was a fair treatment of the subject. Dr. Simonelli is a highly respected historian and can be seen providing insight on networks such as The History Channel.
   
   I found that many of the other negative comments on this web site appeared bias to begin with.
   
   I would suggest reading the book and treating it as what it was meant to be. Overall 5 stars.



2. Not that the discerning reader can't get a lot of good info out of this book but it appears to me that the author went out of his way to portray Rockwell as a loser, a misfit, and someone in need of psychiatric care.
   
   Simonelli somehow managed to get access to much of Rockwells personal correspondences but it seems that he selectively used them to point out instances of turmoil and sadness in Rockwells state of mind. He especially uses Rockwells feelings of despondency about his wife, who was the daughter of the Icelandic ambassador to America, leaving him and taking their children back to Iceland with her. I don't think its a particuarly radical statement for me to say that feeling sad about losing your wife and kids is a sign of being normal. Simonelli somehow manages to twist this into an example of Rockwell being an insane loser.
   
   The other bio of Rockwell, Hate by William Schmaltz, is a far superior and unbiased account of GLR's life and highly recomended. However I can only recomend American Fuehrer to somebody who is researching Rockwell and knows how to read with a discerning eye.



3. Rockwell is another in a long line of haunted personalities mining the hatred of Jews for his own benefit. The same psychosis, blame the Jews and the Blacks for all the abuse he received as a child. Instead of facing his psychological problems, Rockwell scapecoated them and ended up being killed by one of this own supporters, a small band of latent homosexuals, who channelled all their fears and rage into hatred of minorities.

   But what is interesting is the man before me charges that the Jews control the media, and distort the news. How do they do this? Do they meet at a Chinese restaurant every Sunday to give out orders in controlling the world. Who is the top Jew? Larry King, Barbara Walters, Noam Chomsky, or maybe Michael Moore, who is really a Jew hiding his identity.

   If the Jews control the media, why is it everytime I pick up a paper I see favorable pictures of Palestinians, and unfavorable pictures of Israelis, even when they are innocent civilians riding in buses and eating in restaurants?

   Yes, there are a lot of Jews in the media, but when does that become a crime, and what type of personality, sees all Jews acting in a conspiracy?

   This is the same type of person who feels humiliated by anyone who is more talented and competent than him, a perpetually impotent type of personality who is looking for a rationale for his failure in life and love.

   The great crime of the Jew is that he has been successful, and to the perpetually impotent personality this is something that can never be forgiven. Personalities like Rockwell perpetually exploit this hatred, which is basically a hatred of life and love in all its forms. Their true focus is not the Jew per se, but all talent, all ability, all life-positive action.




4. Rockwell may have been the only hope to how our world became today.
   America no longer the same country it was say 30 years ago.
   mass non-white immigration from third world nations flooding America has taken away the spiritual beauty of this once proud land.Rockwell was our only hope.if he live today.the Nazi Party
   may have gotton a good start.Rockwell was indeed the Greatest man who walked this nation!



5. Simonelli's book has two main virtues. First, he had a great deal of access to Rockwell's correpondence and papers and quotes from it liberally. Second, he had a great deal of access to the files of Jewish organizations and individuals who opposed Rockwell.

   In spite of this wealth of primary sources, however, the book is disappointing and prefunctory. It seems that after all his archival sleuthing, Simonelli lost interest in his subject matter when he actually sat down to write the book. This leads to a distorted picture of Rockell's ideas and personality. A much fuller picture is found in the Schmaltz biography HATE.

   One case in point: Simonelli's discussion of the case against John Patler, Rockwell's convicted killer, leaves out crucial pieces of evidence, giving the impression that the case against Patler was weaker than it actually was. Then Simonelli goes on to air the conspiracy theories blaming Matt Koehl, William Pierce, and others for the murder. These may seem plausible to the reader only because the case against Patler is stated weakly. This is VERY MISLEADING and quite simply unjust.

   Simonelli actually does a better job of documenting how Jewish organizations first tried to terrorize and intimidate Rockwell, and then, failing that, resorted to a very successful press blackout to deny him publicity and prevent his ideas from being heard and debated. Simonelli demonstrates just how powerful the Jewish control over the media is, and how Americans are fed a version of reality that is distorted to protect and advance Jewish interests. This is a frightening thought, because if they did it then, they can do it now too.

   The bottom line: I recommend this book as a supplement to Schmaltz's HATE, but not as a substitute. If you read one book on Rockwell, read HATE.

No comments about The Good Fight That Didn't End: Henry P. Goddard's Accounts of Civil War and Peace.