5 comments about Last Night I Dreamed of Peace: The Diary of Dang Thuy Tram.

1. The story behind this story is more germane to me.
   It shows the common thread of conscience and patriotism that cultures & mankind share.
   Neil Alexander a photographer/film maker is working on a documentary that adds a whole new dimension to this story.
   [...]



2. ...to use Blasé Pascal's phrase, relating to his rhetorical question concerning his right to kill another man, just because he lived on that opposite bank. Dang Thuy Tram's diaries are an important addition to that small group of Vietnamese books concerning the American War which have appeared in English, and include Bao Ninh's "The Sorrow of War," and Duong Thu Huong's "Novel Without a Name."
   
   Alain-Fournier was another great writer whose life was cut far too short by war during the very early months of World War I. Both he and Thuy died at the same age, 27. Alain-Fournier's literary reputation was established prior to his death, Thuy's has finally come, posthumously. The strength of her diary is the immediacy and authenticity of the comments. She was quite optimistic at the beginning, but with the mounting casualties in her unit, and the relentless bombardment from the Americans, she turns more pessimistic, and foreshadows her own death. For those portions I would have given her a 5-star rating, but the frequent interjection of that leaden communist rhetoric, and the vague treatment of the personnel struggles within her unit, and the party, I decided to give only a 4-star rating, preferring both of the books above. Also, there were the issues that were only briefly discussed, and were of essential interest - her medical work. There was never an adequate description of her clinic, and the availability of medical supplies. Malaria, and what the GI's called "jungle rot," (fungal infections) were unmentioned yet must have been a significant portion of her work. She mentions in passing the poison that was Agent Orange, but again gives no real description of the effect it had on her unit.
   
   Tim O'Brien, probably the greatest American novelist to come out of this tragic war, was in the infamous Americal Division, in Quang Ngai province, the unit that Thuy repeatedly called "the American bandits." He might have actually have been on one of the patrols that she had to face. The Americal's bases were on the lowlands, near the coast, and the mountains loomed to the West, where Thuy lived, and were a constant source of fascination and beauty - the light was never quite the same on those mountains. One of O'Brien's novels, "Going After Cacciato" explored the fantasy of one soldier finally having had enough, and deciding to walk away from the war, through those mountains, all the way to Europe. I shared that fascination with those mountains, during the same time Thuy was in them, and even had the same fantasy about walking away from the war. I was in a tank unit that spent four months, in late '68, in the next province south, Binh Dinh. One of our jobs was the road "security" of Highway 1, and on several days, we would sit, overlooking the South China Sea, at the boundary between Quang Ngai and Binh Dinh province, only 2 to 5 miles from Thuy's clinic in the hills.
   
   Thuy spoke many times of her desire for revenge against the invaders of her country. An honest and understandable emotion from those who suffered years of misery, and the loss of so many friends. This emotion was shared by her compatriots, and has now been dissipated as they welcome American tourists to their country. I would have loved to have discussed this transformation with her in a tea house in her beloved Hanoi.
   
   Finally, how many more diaries like this are currently being produced in Iraq?



3. Dang Thuy Tram's chronicle, in its English materialization, is perhaps the only Vietnam-related book to touch all sides of that tragedy. It was difficult to keep the incredible passage of her pages, the back story, in the background of this much-anticipated war diary.
   
   In March 2005, just prior to the 30th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, two Vietnam veteran brothers gave a nondescript and scarcely attended talk at Texas Tech University's Vietnam Center. Their presentation was about a diary penned by a Viet Cong doctor that had been kept for 35 years by ex-Army intelligence officer Fred Whitehurst, one of the brothers. His Vietnamese interpreter had advised him to spare the war booty, "Fred, you can't burn this, it already has a fire in it."
   
   Thuy's first entries began in 1968, just after the Tet Offensive. "Operated on one case of appendicitis with inadequate anesthesia. I had only a few meager vials of Novocaine to give the soldier, but he never groaned once during the entire procedure. He even smiled to encourage me."
   
   Unless readers can lay out the original diary next to its English brethren and are fluent in both languages, it will be difficult to determine whether the latter resembles the writing of Thuy or of the publisher's dramatic editing. The narrative is thick but raw, and only spared by entries of exuberance and jubilation by Thuy amid her combat tour to treat and support wounded Communist soldiers. "Oh, Thuy! Overcome these pains in your heart. Be joyful...You cannot live with sentiments alone, you stubborn girl? Furthermore, unless one is a Vietnam veteran, the battlefield context of time and place will be hard to comprehend. Footnotes appear on nearly every other page.
   
   The English translation of Thuy's diary, ironically enough, was done by a former boat person who had fled Communist Vietnam in the late 1970s. He had to enlist the help of his father, a reeducated former South Vietnamese. Last but not least, there is a long introduction--a drawn-out overview of the war--by an antiwar Pulitzer-prize winning journalist.



4. The following is a review of the unabridged audio edition of "Last Night I Dreamed of Peace" offered for download at Audible.com, an Amazon.com trusted partner.
   
   "Last Night I dreamed of Peace" (translated by Andrew Pham)is the war time diary of Dang Thuy Tram, a young Vietnamese doctor in a battlefield hospital during the Vietnam War. Written between 1968 and 1970, her diary speaks of the horrors of war, her yearning for her high school sweetheart, and her struggle to prove her loyalty to her country. Above all though, Thuy's diary tells the story of hope under the most dire circumstances.
   
   The book includes a useful introduction by Frances Fitzgerald.
   
   The diary in and of itself is gripping and powerful, but the narration by Kim Mai Guest significantly adds to its power. Kim Mai Guest gives Thuy a voice, gives voice to Thuy's hopes, dreams, fears and disappointments. In many ways, the audio edition should be the preferred edition because Thuy's words lend themselves more to the spoken word than they do the written word.
   
   There is no denying the book's power. There is also no denying that in the hands of a gifted director/screenwriter, "Last Night I Dreamed of Peace" could be an incredible motion picture.



5. "Last night I dreamed that Peace was established," Dang Thuy Tram confided to her diary. "Oh, the dream of Peace and Independence has burned in the hearts of thirty million people for so long. For Peace and Independence, we have sacrificed everything. So many people have volunteered to sacrifice their whole lives for these two words: Independence and Liberty. I, too, have sacrificed my life for that grandiose fulfillment." Thuy never saw the fulfillment of her dream. She was only twenty-seven when on June 22, 1970 American soldiers put a bullet through her forehead.
   
   Dang Thuy Tram (b. November 26, 1942) was a surgeon fresh out of medical school who headed a field hospital in the remote, mountain jungles of Vietnam. She operated without anesthesia, rebuilt her clinic every time it was bombed, tended to the peasants whose villages had been burned and bull-dozed, hid in her underground shelter, and suffered the atrocities of war -- kids stepping on land mines, helicopter gunships in the middle of the night, forests stained yellow by toxic defoliants, napalm bombs, amputees, and patients like Khanh, a twenty-year old victim of a phosphorous bomb whose charred body, burned to a crisp, still smoldered with smoke an hour after it was admitted to her clinic.
   
   The sparse possessions found with Thuy's body included some medicines, a rice ledger, a Sony radio, and this diary. When the American soldier Fred Whitehurst found the diary during the mop-up, he violated military regulations, kept the diary, and took it home with him in 1972 after three tours of duty in Vietnam. In April 2005 he was able to deliver the diary to Thuy's eighty-one-year old mother and three sisters, who published it in Hanoi on July 18, 2005. In the following eighteen months Thuy's diary sold 430,000 copies -- in a country where two-thirds of the citizens were born after the war ended and where books rarely sell more than 5,000 copies.
   
   Much like Clint Eastwood's film Letters from Iwo Jima, Thuy's diary tells the story of Vietnam from the perspective of our "enemy." She's a fervent patriot devoted to Vietnam's revolutionary resistance. She longs for acceptance with the Communist Party which suspects her admitted bourgeois background and attitudes (her father was a surgeon and her mother a university lecturer). She rages with hatred against the American invaders, those "imperialist killers, vicious dogs, bloodthirsty devils, and terrible, cruel people who want to use our blood to water their tree of gold." More importantly, Thuy's diary reveals the longings of a fellow human being who misses her mom and dad and aches with loneliness for her boyfriend. FitzGerald's introduction, numerous footnotes that explain historical details, and two dozen family photographs complement Thuy's deeply human dream of peace.

5 comments about Children of the Flames: Dr. Josef Mengele and the Untold Story of the Twins of Auschwitz.

1. Where's the real info, the real description of Mengele's experiments, even a picture of the man??!! Not in this book.
   
   Let's get some things straight here: German Nazi scientists were extremely well trained, meticulous, and the creme of the creme for most of the 20th century. Mengele was no different. He was not sloppy, or random, or "insane" (in the conventional sense), or simply tortured kids for his entertainment. He was (from the 1940s to the 1960s at least) the World's premier expert on creating mind controlled people based on extreme trauma. Various types of trauma were inflicted on people to such an extent that their minds "fractured" (he also developed the best drugs to give them to prevent them from passing out, such that their conscious minds had to "deal" with the enormous pain, etc.). He controlled the "fracturing" process and created many different "alters" for different purposes within these people, essentially multiple personalities all within the same person, but completely unaware of the other. In other words, he perfected the manufacture of what has now been coined, The Manchurian Candidate, through trauma based mind control techniques. He did not originate the premise (as it was used in Egyptian times and perhaps earlier), but he greatly advanced the "science" of it.
   
   With this in mind, he used very young twins for a number of practical reasons: 1) twins represent the perfect control for experiments, 2) he found it was easier to fracture and "cement" the process in children under the age of 5. In fact, he knew that if a pregnant mother was traumatised and delivered a premature infant, it was even better. He also experimented on physically traumatising the fetus directly, 3) due to the Nazis great essoteric and occult interest, he was fascinated by the "etheric connection" twins have and was interested in quantifying it for military communication, 4) he realised that memories and emotions are carried within the blood, so he was also involved in blood transfusions and primitive organ transplants to test his hypotheses, and 5) it was even rumoured he was also interested in and advancing human cloning. In short, the discoveries that Mengele made and the results he was getting interested every government and military entitiy in the World, and they all bidded for his services at the end of WW2, irregardless of any morality or ethical questions. This is why the real documentation of what he was doing was not publicly admitted to. Instead, we were told he was just insane and wanted to dye all the chidren's eyes blue and convert them to Aryans.
   
   As it turned out, the Americans won the bidding, and Mengele was transferred along with THOUSANDS of other Nazi scientists in what was termed, "Operation Paperclip". Some of these Nazis joined the OSS (which later became the CIA), some formed what became known as NASA, others formed what became known as the NSA, but Mengele and his ilk continued with their mind control stuff within military facilites in Arizona, Nevada, California, Colorado, and possibly even Canada for MANY YEARS. In fact, he trained many other "programmers" in his techniques. Marilyn Monroe was what was termed a "Presidential Model" of mind control slave and many others have followed within Hollywood and the music business. In fact, Britney Spears is the best modern example of a mind control slave who is losing her programming.
   
   Mengele may have made appearances in South America from time to time, or maybe it was a body double, but he carried right where he left off in the dark days of WW2. And his program carries on TODAY. So, this book talks about some poor twins and its a sad and horrific story, but completely misses the point as to what Mengele was, where he went, and what became of him. He, along with the other Paperclip scientists, infiltrated the US and formed a 4th Reich of sorts...



2. This book takes us from the youths of of Josef Mengele and his victims (briefly) to Auschwitz to the Nazi-hunting of the post-war period to the late 1980s. It tells these stories in alternating voices, stressing how necessary it is to do so: these stories are inextricably linked.
   
   The title is a bit misleading; this is perhaps weighed more on the side of a brief biography of Mengele, with emphasis on postwar activities. The stories of a group of twins break into the narrative in italicized bursts, fracturing it-- and thus reminding us all of how the horrific events of World War II fractured individuals, families, communities, nations.
   
   The book is an oral history of Auschwitz, told by those who survived it. Certainly, it is well researched (especially when it comes to the information about Nazi hunting and war tribunals), but the information in the "spotlight," so to speak, are the unsilenced voices of the twins. Do not expect pages of historical detail about what types of experiments were performed, reviews of medical cases, lengthy discussions of what occured in labs; that information is not there. This is a book about a handful of people and their stories, and while the book tells Mengele's for him, the twins tell their own. Particularly on the part of the twins, it is more a psychological study than a historical one (we could go into how psychology and history are intertwined, but it would be best for the reader to reach his or her own conclusions after reading the book).
   
   The text is deeply moving, often shattering. The voices that shatter the narrative of Mengele's life, denying the murderer any seamless biography, are vivid and alive. The authors picked a unique and, ultimately, extremely effective way to deliver biographies of oppresser and oppressed.



3. This book exceeded my expectations. The way the author goes back and forth between survivors' accounts and factual information about Mengele was a great way to keep the book interesting. I was intrigued from beginning to end. A lot of books that just rehash the past can be boring but this book was truely great. I learned a lot of factual information but also was deeply drawn to the survivors' stories. Highly recommended!



4. This is a very good book with factual accounts from some of the youngest twins. What I found confusing is the way the author wrote the book. There seems to be some jumping around, comparisons of sorts. This book thoroughly explains how the surviving twins got together and met with the author, as well as the founding of their organization. This book does not go into great detail as to what specific types of horrific experiments were done, as most of the survivors able to tell their stories were very young at the time, and/or they have repressed their memories of the horror. It does give second-hand accounts of the 'goings-on' of Mengele by those that survived.



5. This harrowing book traces both the life of 'the angel of death', the psycopathic monster, Dr Josef Mengele, and his victims who survived.
   Mengele carried out a range of horrific experiments on a range of people, mainly twins. particularly Jewish and Gipsey children, and various others.
   As Mengele's life is described, so is the life of the survivors, the horrors that they experienced at Auschwitz and how they lived in the decades afterwards.
   "Most of the twins began their descent into Auschwitz by witnessing their entire families being led away from them to be killed. In their special barracks, located just yards away from the crematoriums, they observed the Nazis' extermination of Jews at close range. Twins as young as five and six years of age endured torture, daily blood tests and starvation diets, as well as facing exposure to epidemics of cholera, tuberculosis and other deadly diseases that were rampant because of unsanitary conditions. Worst of all, of course, were the Mengele's barbaric pseudoscientific experiments. But as horrific as their lives were the twins enjoyed a special privileged status, for they were regarded as "Mengele's children". And as such they were spared the random selections and march to the gas chambers that threatened every other Auschwitz inmate'.
   
   The testimony of a handful of survivors illustrates the horror of Mengele and Auschwitz, and the scars of the experiences suffered by his victims, and how they experienced them through their lives.
   In the testimony of Moshe Offer, who was twelve years old at the time: 'When they opened the doors to our cattle cars, there were lots of dead children. During the trip, some mothers couldn't bare to hear the sound of their hungry babies-and so they killed them. I remember two blond, very beautiful children in my car, whose mother had choked them to death because she could not stand to watch them suffer'.
   
   Eva Mozes, who was nine years old at the time, recounts how, at Auschwitz-Birkenau, she and her twin sister were packed into filthy, rat infested barracks, together with hundreds of other little girls.
   She remembers seeing three dead children on the ground. Later they would always be finding dead children on the floor of the latrines.
   From their barracks they could see huge, smoking chimneys rising high above the camp. There were glowing flames rising above them. ' " Why are they burning so late in the evening?" I asked the other children. "The Germans are burning people they answered".
   Twins Hedvah and Leah Stern. who were thirteen years old at the time, recount how Mengele tried to change the colour of their eyes:' One day we were given eye drops. Afterwards, we could not see for several days. We though the Nazis had made us blind.
   We were very frightened of the experiments. They took a lot of blood from us. We fainted several times, and the SS guards were very amused.
   We were not very developed. The Nazis made us remove our clothes and they took photographs of us.
   The SS guards would point to us and laugh. We stood naked in front of these young Nazi thugs, shaking from cold and fear, and they laughed."
   The first few chapters of the book deal with Mengele's role in Auschwitz itself, and the rest of the book relates Eichmann's experience in hiding in South America, and the way the surviving twins built up lives and families for themselves, most of them in Israel, while the nightmare of Auschwitz would scar and effect them forever.Most of the twins longed to emigrate to the Land of Israel, then the British Colony of Palestine.
   They soon found that the Communist rulers of their former homes in lands like Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania, were hostile to the Jewish people too, and pesecuted those who wanted to go to Israel and those who wanted to hold onto their Jewish faith, as 'Zionists'. Thus developed that form of Leftist anti-Semitism known as anti-Zionism, which was incubated by the Soviet Union, and is endemic among the international left today.
   The rest of the book deals with how Mengele dwindled in exile into a neurotic and bitter non-being. The surivors describe their lives in Israel and elsewhere, after the war, their often fearful behaviour, their nightmares and their treatment, and also how they built up new lives and families, which live on in the Jewish homeland.
   Mengele died after suffering a stroke and drowning in 1979, in Brazil.

5 comments about Patton: A Genius for War.

1. I've been facinated by history since grade school and just fell in love with this book. Patton was an amazing character and one of those rare individuals that only comes along every hundred years or so.
   
   This book is very long, but gives as complete a biographical picture of Gen Patton as possible. It details his entire life, from childhood through WW1 and WW2 all the way until his untimely death. Sadly his career was constantly derailed by lesser gifted generals like Ike or Bradley. If you are a history buff or Patton fan, then this book is for you.



2. I had never read anything regarding General Patton, but after having watched the movie "Patton" again, I went to find the best biography of Patton available. I read many of them, but BY FAR, this is the best available. A work of biographical art: reveals the humanity of Patton the warrior, and reviews his place in history without prejudice.
   
   Sincerely recommended to everyone who wishes to read an excellent biography of General George S. Patton.



3. This is by far the most comprehensive and enjoyable biography I've read on General Patton. Mr. D'Este has painstakingly recorded the entire life of one of the greatest battlefield commanders in history. As the New York Times Review states "...he neither damns nor beautifies his subject". There's no better way to sum up this work. It's brilliant and fair. I'm looking forward to the author's new book on Winston Churchill that should be arriving this year.



4. I for one, certainly do not agree with Alistair Horne's phrase,"Revisionism at best" with regards to this book.
   As mentioned by earlier reviewers, Carlos D'Estes book traces the Patton family history to soldiers in earlier times. That General Patton was influenced by these family heroes is without doubt. In fact, it explains a lot about the man's sense of destiny, responsibility, and continual need to excel at whatever he attempted.
   More than a quick sketch of a complex man, this is a biography worth reading and studying.
   Patton was one of his kind.
   An invaluable book to anyone seeking to understand Patton on and off the battlefield.
   Well written, I couldn't put it down.



5. Patton is often described as "controversial". To those who have never fought in war, or perhaps even just engaged in competitive sports, or who otherwise have only a sort of normal, everyday idea about how people ought to act, I suppose he is: Arrogant, sometimes outwardly cruel, demanding, competitive, a taskmaster, single-minded, agressive, angry, all the rest. I've never fought in war, but I've played my share of competitive sports (a paltry parallel, but the best I can do). In sports, everyone (if they're lucky) had a coach like this somewhere along the way, and they most likely took more lessons away from that man or woman than all the colorless middle-of-the-roaders combined. They most likely achieved things under that person's direction that they didn't know they had the capacity to do. They most likely recall details about that person many years later, after they've forgotten most of the others. When the old team-mates get together, that's who most of the stories are about (many told as being funny, now - not so at the time).
   
   To me, that's Patton: An American original who just barely escaped being a bombastic buffoon. He avoided that fate and scaled the heights of history because he was a born leader of men - one who either broke them (rarely), or got the best out of them (much more often); because he knew his business inside-out; because he worked at it day and night; and most of all, because finally, he WON.
   
   I think that this intensely personal essence is what is most completely captured in this book. It fills in many of the overlooked or understated details from the well-known George C. Scott movie, and adds much new material besides. An excellent book, worthy not only as a war biography, but as a study of what it honestly takes to do REALLY well at any endeavor in life.

5 comments about Napoleon: The Path to Power.

1. This is a book for the serious Buonapartiste - particularly his secret detractors. The Sorbonne-educated historian has given us PART ONE of his work - a work of over 600 pages - and I found the deluge of historical materials to be both overwhelming and deftly handled, the resolution to this paradox being that Dwyer is guilty of what he demonstrates behind Napoleon's ascent: a clumsy spin doctoring of the "facts."
   
   This also is the reason I find fault with the very conception of the book: we long have reconciled ourselves to remaining trapped within the vortices of history, myth, and cultural creationism when it comes to this particular biographical subject. Unable to break the historian's taboo of psychoanalytic consideration of its subject, this book ultimately is a doomed enterprise as yet another attempt at "understanding" the man.
   
   I wait for the biography that tells us something new about how the man's context, the history/myth/culture that he found himself in, struggled against, and, in this case, to great extent, found itself transformed in his wake. Our obsession with the little giant certainly would favor this approach.
   
   Peter Glidden, Ph.D.



2. This biography is dry as dust. All the principle individuals are two dimensional. The writer writes as if they were stick figures rather than real people who influenced the course of history. His protrait of Napoleon is without flesh and blood.



3. Napoleon's military brilliance, his ruthless domination of both his army and France's conquered territories - such as in his Egyptian campaign - and his intuitive grasp of nation building through nation invading, is a fascinating story and author Philip Dwyer writes a gripping tale of Napoleon's strategic and tactical military conquests.
   
   Yet, for this very reason, Dwyer's "Napoleon: Path to Power" reads more like "Napoleon: March to Victory" as the book is less a political biography as it is a military history. With its interesting battle and territory maps, as well as art and captions, I felt this book earned a 4-star rating.
   
   Dwyer clearly establishes Napoleon's early influences as a youth on Corsica and at a boarding school in France, where he learns - sometimes at great expense - that the battlefront is a means to the end in the battleground of ideas. As a young adult, he uses his army abroad to build a constituency back home in France. He shamelessly manipulated his soldiers, the press, his family and friends and even his countrymen to achieve his real ambitions of political domination.
   
   If Dwyer had followed that narrative, this book may have been a more compelling story. Napoleon wasn't a general who somehow became a politician; he was a politician who became a general so he could become an even bigger politician.
   
   The proof of which is that Napoleon's greatest victory isn't even on the battlefield; it's a bloodless coup d'etat in 1799 over the corrupt and ineffective French Directory (his superiors) - the post-Revolutionary constitutional government. He was 30-years old and First Counsel of an emerging European power.



4. I tried to read it. I really did. It's one of my favorite subjects. I so far got through maybe 100 pages. I haven't given up, but nor would I take it on vacation. Perhaps if I were stuck in an elevator, alone with nothing to do and nothting else to read, I'd sit down and complete another 100 pages.
   
   Well, after trying the phone, pounding on the walls, and trying to jump up to the ceiling to exit through one of those hidden doors and shimmying up the greased cables to a door and trying to pry it open. Failing that, I may just be inclined to read more of the book.
   
   But then again, why would I have it with me?



5. This is a well written biographical account of Napoleon's rise to become absolute ruler of France, covering as much his psychological development as his political dealings and military victories.

5 comments about In Deadly Combat: A German Soldier's Memoir of the Eastern Front (Modern War Studies (Paper)).

1. The book was originally written for the survivors of Bidermann's regiment and division, not for the general public. Bearing this in mind you will have a better understanding and feeling for the author's account of his experience of fighting on the Eastern Front during WW2. At times you might find the narrative old fashioned and even cliched but this is definitely not the case, it has to be taken in context of when and why this book was first written. This is a combination of a combat history of the 132nd Infantry Division and the author's role and experiences in the fighting on the Eastern Front. The author, Gottlob Herbert Bidermann, won the Iron Crosse First and Second Class, the Crimean Shield, the Close Combat Badge, the German Cross in Gold, the Golden Wound Badge (wounded five times), the Honour Roll Clasp and the Tank Destruction Badge. What is remarkable is that the author survived five years of combat on the Russian Front fighting in Crimea (in Manstein's legendary 11th Army), Leningrad and later in the Courland Pocket under the most attrocious conditions. I found his stories about his early years fighting with an anti-tank section using the Pak 37 "doorknocker" very interesting, I had always believed these weapons to be next to useless on the Russian Front however I was surprised. Generally, I found this book to be a very fascinating account of the fighting conducted on the Eastern Front from the perspective of a young German soldier. It offers some very interesting insights into combat and its effect on men who in the end just tried to survive against immense odds, but also some light moments which reveal the true character of the typical German soldier. The last chapters deal with Bidermann's imprisonment in various camps in USSR and the many hardships that the German soldiers suffered there. There is a number of absorbing black and white photographs supplied from private sources that give the book a human touch. The only real problem that readers may find with this book is the lack of maps detailing the movements and battles of the 132nd Infantry Division. Overall this is the sort of book that should be in the library of every serious reader or student of the war on the Russian Front during World War Two.



2. There's not much more I can add to all of the glowing reviews for this book. I'm fascinated by WWII history and have read many accounts, and this is a rare and excellent look from the German soldier's point of view.
   
   I would have given it 5 stars but for one thing: the publishers have included only one map. This book needs many more maps to illustrate the remote locations and battles described by the author.
   
   Unfortunately, this is often the failing of too many historical books about various wars. This book has a single map at the beginning, illustrating a vast area from Finland down to the Black Sea in almost no detail. It is nearly useless for understanding the movements of the troops as described.
   
   I would strongly urge the publishers to include more maps for the next edition -- surely there will be one?



3. A few things stood out in this book,
   1. Bidermann was envious of how well the Russian soldiers were outfitted from boots, jackets, to weapons and trucks.
   2. By late 1941 the fighting was already tenacious in Russia.
   3. By late 1942 - early 1943 it seemed that the Russian air force was unopposed.
   4. On the eve of invading Russia, there divisions main source of mobility was either by foot or horse, and from the very beginning if they could acquire the enemies equipment they would because that was all that was available - Bidermann even commented how they preferred the Russain trucks (Fords via lend lease I am sure) because it was easier to get maintence parts - this was already standard operation by September 1941 ! !
   5. Several examples of how strict discipline was in the German army.
   6. Bidermann described VERY vividly the deprivations they lived and fought in starting with 1941. As one example - he wrote about how taxing it was to be out doors 24 hours a day for months - in the rain, mud, snow, heat, etc - always outdoors.
   7. When his unit entered Latvia he commented that he was finally in familiar surroundings as far as the farms/buildings and people. My parents are from Latvia, and even though we are not slavic, and embrace the west not the east, I found it interesting that an outsider could see a difference between the Russian landscape versus the Lavtvian.
   8. I have ready several German accounts about fighting on the eastern front, and they do mention fighting Bolshevism, but Bidermann is the first author that conveyed to me why the Germans fought so tenaciously in Russia once the war got under way. ( I have never come across a satifying explanation that compeled the comon Germans to attack France, Norway, Belgium, Greece etc.)
   9. In describing the hardship, heartache, fear etc.Bidermann is actually quite a good writer. He was not merely repeating events as he experienced them, but portrayed the experiences in a way that takes you there. I have recently read Tigers In the Mud, Black Edelweiss, Soldat by Sigfried Knappe, and Death Traps - all personal accounts, all books I liked and recomend, BUT Biedermann is the most taleneted writer.
   
   This book is a personal account which I very much enjoy reading about, but interspersed is also unit movements and the like. These sections are not too long, and I quickly skim over them because I am not interested in large troop movement type history. The book also had a map that was ok, but Bidermann mentions many cities where he was, but are not shown on the map. Also, the names of most cities in Latvia are the German version not Latvian, so despite being fluent in Latvian I have to do some studying to figure out where he is. For non- latvian speakers they would have to find a German-Laltvian translation.



4. I bought this book based on reviews on Amazon.
   
   What interested me was that the book was not written to be sold to the masses and make a million dollars, but rather it documents actual events that occurred on the eastern front to this infantry regiment. The book is written for the most part in third person.
   
   Much of the book, which is quite long, is outstanding and certainly provides a glimpse of what it may have been like to be a German soldier flighting on the eastern Front. That said, many pages I found dry and uninteresting. I found myself skipping a few lines here and there - especially in relation to divisional history, etc.
   
   If you are wanting a spine chilling account of warfare - don't buy this book. It cannot be compared to, for example, "Sniper on the Eastern Front" (which maybe a true account or fiction; I'm not quite sure). If your interested in history, would like to try and understand why the Germans fought as they did and what living and fighting was like in Russia, then I'd recommend you buy the book.
   
   I'd say that 60% of the book is interesting, whilst the remaining 40% will make you a little sleepy. That said, the 60% is well worth reading. My opinion only and others will no doubt think differently.



5. awsome read! this guy went through hell and lived . i found how he described abandoning his PAK ( life-saver many times ) very moving.he always gave a damn about his troops ( which doesn't happen nowadays ).i highly recommend this read to anyone who wants to know how the heer ( not the ss or nazis etc. ) made it through this war of extreme depravity. excellent in my books!

5 comments about Five Years to Freedom: The True Story of a Vietnam POW.

1. James Rowe's story is one that makes you appreciate how good we have things in our day to day lives. I love POW tales because I am always hoping the person(s) can find a way to escape to freedom. This story was fine but I would say a little darker & more depressing than most POW tales I have read.



2. Interesting but written more as a novel and not as an actual recount of his 5 year imprisonment in the hands of the North Vietnamese. The minute detail of his every recollection during his 5 years of captivity makes it difficult to believe that he himself wrote his memoirs. Nevertheless I salute him for his bravery, his will to survive and service to his country.



3. This book should be on everyone's "must read" list. It should also be on the must read list for evey high school student. This book is very well written and easy to follow. It is also very hard to put down once you start reading it. Being a Vietnam War Veteran myself, I would highly recomend this book to anyone.



4. Incredible story of this man and other POW's in Vietnam. This is one of, if not the best, books I've ever read. One of the many points I took away was how the will to live sustained Nick Rowe and so many others. Maybe more so, it gave me an appreciation for the freedoms we take so much for granted. I finihed the book days ago, and can't get it out of my mind. Great book, Great leasons, Great man.



5. I served with 1st SFG during Vietnam. I knew Nick and the young soldiers knew about his experience as a POW. He was a fine and well respected leader within the SF community. The book is exciting and takes its' place within the accurate historical realm. To set the record straight there were plans in the making and at least one effort to rescue Nick. Also suggest reading "Raider" about CSM Gallen C. Kittleson who had been selected as part of the rescue attempt for Nick. Also suggest reading "Code Name Columbus."

5 comments about John McCain: An American Odyssey.

1. Written at a time when John McCain was preparing for a presidential run in 2000, this book can hardly considered up to date. Nevertheless, it paints a useful picture of the man who figures to be the Republican standard bearer in 2008. If a better biography (leaving aside McCain's memoir) is available, I am not aware of it.
   
   "An American Odyssey" is by journalist Robert Timberg (Baltimore Sun), also a graduate of the Naval Academy but in a more recent year. The portrayal of McCain is sympathetic - military tradition of his family, distinguished service record, heroism as a prisoner of war, passion for doing what he thinks right. No wonder that so many people who crossed paths with McCain remember him with affection and respect.
   
   This is not a puff piece, however, and many incidents are related that show McCain in a less than a flattering light - disrespectful of authority, impulsive, lacking a clear sense of direction. I found this aspect of the book invaluable, as it provides a basis for evaluating the character flaws (terrible temper, broken by North Vietnamese captors, etc.) that critics have attributed to McCain.
   
   Timberg's conclusion: here is a man with flaws, no "early bloomer" for sure, but when the chips were down he did far better than most of us would have done. Crucially, McCain emerged from the dark days of the Vietnam War with a determination to look ahead rather than wasting the rest of his life in anger and regret.
   
   My recommendation: read the book and decide whether you agree.



2. This is a book which i have had on my bookshelf for 5 years, and have not read until this past month. Mccain is the man i will vote for president, so it was about time i read. It is not a great literary read however i have learned much about this man and my respect for him has grown. Of course since this book was written in advance of his 2000 campaign I would reccomend one of his more updated books.



3. An especially revealing passage indicates that McCain does not practice what he preaches, hardly a surprise. While he supposedly now supports abstinence education and favors the repeal of Roe v. Wade, previously he supported legalized abortion and clearly does not practice abstinence, by his own admission in this book (his last nite in Rio). Wake up and don't fall for this power-hungry septagenarian. America can do better.



4. John McCain may be a character that is currently considered either in love or hate, but either of those opinions could be well challenged by the facts presented in this well-written account of the Senator's life. From his boyhood in the shadow of his father and grandfather (both US admirals themselves) to his escapades at the Academy and then into his heroic tenure in Vietnam, this book does a superb job of detailing the life and ideologies of this provacative man that one ay never understand by simply watching CNN or CNBC. Even his rise into politics is detailed in an unbiased manner and I firmly believe that this book should be essential reading for anyone with an interest in American politics or recent political and military history.



5. I read this book before McCain withdrew from the Presidential race. Though there was some "selling of the candidate," I found the book to be mainly quite objective. I wish I could feel so informed about all candidates and will try in the future to read biographies before I vote. I now see that as my responsibility.

5 comments about Patton: A Biography (Great Generals).

1. This concise but authoritative biography of General George S. Patton, Jr. is the perfect text for the person who desires a penetrating biography of this legendary General without the length of some of the more complete biographies out there.
   
   As others have already posted, this is an easy-to-read biography that makes a great introduction to Patton's life, and for many readers this is complete enough to stop here. Alexrod does a great job of capturing the essence of Patton's life and philosophy in such a brief biography.
   
   The book starts out strong with the introduction by General Wesley K. Clark, and I can't help but agree with his sentiment that Patton was a winner, a morale- and team-builder who adapted quickly and sought to master every challenge and that we need leaders like Patton today.
   
   Axelrod has written an excellent concise biography of General Patton. I recommend it to anyone who wants a quick overview of his life and desires an introduction to this great general. I also recommend it to those that have read more exhaustive biographies on General Patton as I have. Sure, I was familiar with what was written because I have read the longer texts on his life, but I enjoyed this quick read about one of my favorite generals. If you like Patton or want to know more about him, this is a great little book.
   
   Reviewed by Alain Burrese, J.D., author, speaker
   Hard-Won Wisdom From The School of Hard Knocks, Hapkido Hoshinsul, Streetfighting Essentials, Hapkido Cane, and The Lock On Joint Locking series



2. This was given to me as a gift and am not sure I would've bought it on my own. But I listened to the entire unabridged Audio CD set and it was fine. I think about 70% of the material I already knew; there were a few new bits of information and insight that I gained. If nothing else it gives you a sense of how accurate the Patton movie starring George C. Scott is. One way in which the Patton movie may NOT be accurate is that Axelrod's book states that the slapping incident(s) in Sicily were NOT the reason that Patton was not given responsibility for, or direct involvement in, Operation Overlord. Apparently the decision to put Bradley in charge was made before the slapping incident occured.
   
   This would be a good book or tape/CD to give to a young man or woman in their teens who wishes to begin to learn about this particular great American military man and the times in which he lived.



3. General George Patton was a great, aggressive leader who had no fear of death. He could lead people where they thought they could not go. He was devout believer in Christ, a fatalist, and really believed himself a reincarnation of a past general. He loved war like Napoleon loved it, and when in one, always was attacking.
   
   I knew little about him before I read the book, and now I feel I have an understanding of his character. He was a man full of contradictions as the book will explain - things you wouldn't expect - like his inner self-doubt and depression, and his outer utter-confidence.
   
   Although they had minor differences of opinion, the conservativeness of Eisenhower and the aggressiveness of Patton with their similar beliefs and background made them a great team during the war.
   
   Patton was a natural leader, and the book reveals his character with all his idiosyncrasies. I would recommend the book to anyone who has general interest into Patton or WWII.
   



4. I generally thought that this book was not particularly well written, I spotted a typo in the first of the book that could have been corrected with some editing. The writing was certainly not complex: more like a middle school text. However, I found the facts of Patton's life extrodinary.



5. In my humble opinion, this title is one of the best biographies I've read in a long time. While the book contains only about 180 pages, the account is thorough and does not get bogged down in a dry summary of war strategy and tactics that afflicts other books.
   
   Axelrod is able to describe in appropriate detail many aspects of Patton's life:
   
   1. His early childhood in California, time at Virginia Military Institute, and ultimately graduating from West Point.
   2. Involvement in the expedition against Pancho Villa and World War 1.
   3. Rise to fame in World War 2.
   4. Relationship with Eisenhower, Bradley, Montgomery, and other WW2 officers.
   5. Relationship with enlisted men (including the 2 slapping incidents).
   6. Tempestuous marriage to his wife Beatrice and his supposed reputation as a ladies' man.
   7. The automobile wreck that led to his untimely death.
   
   The part I enjoyed reading the most was probably the author's description of this highly effective general and most complex individual's personality. On the one hand, there is no doubt that while Patton played a significant role in WW2, many people disliked him. However, no one can argue with his point that Russia should have been dealt with much more firmly at the conclusion of WW2. Events from the 1940s - 1980s proved him to be correct.
   
   A highly recommended read. Read and enjoy learning about one of our nation's greatest generals.

5 comments about Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-45.

1. How far will the united States go to support a ruler on the words of others? Stilwell was, first and foremost, a soldier; a general of uncommon skills. Not so much the common touch as the respect by the troops for putting them first, their welfare was his top priority. His years in the east made him the obvious choice for the China post. No general has been asked to do as much as he had to do on the political front, treating with allies who were concerned above all for their place in the sun, while at the same time, fighting a tenacious, skilled, dedicated enemy. Surely a harbinger of what was to come in a place tro the north, called Korea.



2. This book very elegantly and faithfully documented the Stilwell's point of view of what happened during this part of history, but it is very one-sided.
   
   First of all, the KMT commanders were not mostly corrupt and incapable like Tuchman had described in this book. A direct quote from TIME artile titled "The Army Nodbody Knows" in the June 16, 1941 issue:
   "...Four years of war have hurt China a lot, but have also taught China a lot. The most spectacular discovery, for a nation in which military leadership has classically been an affair of coin and cunning rather than martial skill, has been that China could turn out first-class officer talent.
   
   There is no younger officer class in the world than that of the Generalissimo's crack divisions. Generalissimo Chiang is 53, Chen Cheng is 41, Chen's Field Chief of Staff is 34. It would be hard to find a divisional or regimental commander in those divisions over 40. Regimental colonels are sometimes in their 20s.
   
   These baby officers are tough babies. They are trim as well-kept guns, big fellows, by Chinese standards, hearty and jolly in rest and brutally energetic in action. They lead in person. With their divisions they clamber up mountainsides which would put most corpulent U.S. colonels hors de combat. In nearly four years of fighting, the young officers have mastered the arts of the field--silent de ployment, timely retreat, sudden concentration, plausible ambuscade, dependable supply of vegetable camouflage..."
   
   But as this book has gone out of its way to emphasize, it is true that Chiang's administration towards the end of the second Sino-Japanese war was becoming weak and corrupt, which eventually led to his lost of mainland China to the Communist. However, this fact needs to be put into context as well. China fought alone for 4 years against a vastly more superior enemy. Therefore many of the best Nationalist Chinese generals were KIA or incapacitated early in the war of resistance against Japan. There were 73 KMT generals KIA during WWII (plus 1 Chinese Communist general), more than any other country Allied or Axis. It is reasonable to assume that many of the KMT military commanders that managed to survive and rise in ranks to the end were more interested in self preservation and personal gain, rather than defeating the emeny. Chiang knew this all too well but could do very little to alleviate this problem, all he could do was execute one or two of them from time to time to warn others not to go too far. So Tuchman's analogy comparing KMT to AVRN is not only inappropriate, but also failed to take into account the context of China fighting a 8-year long war with marginal industrial capacity and grossly inadeqate military supplies. It is a miracle that Chiang did not surrender and broker some kind of peace agreement with the Japanese.
   
   Finally, this book has indirectly proved that Stilwell spent (and wasted) way too much time and energy accusing the KMT leadership and fighting Chiang and Chennault, instead of accepting the tremedous shortcomings of his Chinese Ally and try to work out a less than perfect solution to fight the Japanese. His despise and hatred toward Chiang got to a point when Roosevelt gave Chiang an ultimatum to hand over command of all Chinese armed forces to Stilwell (with explicit instruction to keep this confidential), he rushed to have the letter read out loud in front of all the Chinese and American generals attending a meeting, for the sole purpose of embarrass and discredit Chiang in public. This event led directly to his recall as Chiang replied to Roosevelt that the KMT would rather fight alone than cave in to this ultimatum.



3. As much as I think this books has provided a lot of information/insight during the period, I found author's comtemptuous attidude towards Chinese a bit hard to swallow. In a way, she was somehow biased when she wrote the book. In no way I'm accusing her of distorting the fact, but, how the fact is presented will shape the opinion of a general reader about Chinese. This is probably not the main point of the book, but for a book that has won putlizer prize, I would have expected more.



4. This book is of exceptional quality and stands up very well after nearly forty years. If not for Tuchman, Stilwell, who was one of the best generals in the U.S. Army during World War II, would be lost to history given his unrewarding work in a backwater region.
   
   Tuchman does an excellent job of letting Stilwell speak for himself. His integrity, brilliance, and humble nature come through. So do his pugnacious and combative personality, which while quite useful for a general in an operational command, were counterproductive in China. Having written a book on Stilwell myself, I believe she is absolutely right that he was the wrong man for this posting, which was about diplomacy as much as it was military campaigns. If he had not gone to China, he probably would have lead the U.S. invasion of North Africa instead of Dwight D. Eisenhower. Given their differing personalities and Stilwell's Anglophobia, Vinegar Joe would not have done well there either. He was an exceptionally able military leader, but he needed to be commanding field armies rather trying to be a diplomat.
   
   This book, though, is more than a biography. It is a life and times study with Stilwell being a tool to study the U.S. relationship with China. Many people blamed Stilwell for poorly managing relations with China that ended up weakening Chiang Kai-shek and allowed the Communists to come to power. An easy claim to make since Stilwell died in 1946. Tuchman is balanced in her account and gives Stilwell's critics their moment. She also develops Chiang's point of view and shows that he and Stilwell were pursuing different policies because they had different goals. This leads to her main theme that China has never been under the sway or control of the United States, and that we have many experts on China, and ignore them at our peril. Tuchman was writing with the Vietnam War in mind, seeing Stilwell's experiences as setting in motion events that brought U.S. involvement in that region. That assertion seems a little simplistic, but this book is still highly, highly relevant given the current nature of U.S.-Chinese relations.
   
   With all these points made, this book is not without certain shortcomings. She skimps a bit on operational matters, which is understandable given her focus. While this biography is good, very good, it is not Tuchman at her best. "Guns of August" is better. That comment, though, is like complaining that you won an Olympic gold medal without setting a world record. Most of us would take Olympic gold under those conditions and Tuchman really deserved the Pulitzer she won for this study.



5. This is a remarkable book and well worth reading nearly four decades after its initial publication. Tuchman is a gifted author and her subject, "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell, is an outrageous, memorable figure. Even readers with a limited familiarity with China or the Pacific theater during the Second World War will find "Stilwell and the American Experience in China" captivating.
   
   Joe Stilwell was, to say the least, an unusual Army officer for his generation. He had a gift for languages and was drawn to career-limiting foreign assignments from the moment in he left West Point. He spoke fluent Spanish and French before he accepted a chance posting to China in his mid-thirties primarily because it offered the opportunity to get out of the country and learn a new language and culture. By the time the US entered the Second World War, Stilwell was the most highly rated Corps commander in the Army, but also had many years experience in China and spoke fluent Mandarin. Although George Marshall wanted him to command the first US ground campaign of the war - the TORCH landings in North Africa - Stilwell was sent to Asia because no one else was better qualified to serve in China, a region of great importance after the British were booted quickly out of Hong Kong, Singapore and the rest of East Asia by the Japanese.
   
   The irony of this book is that Stilwell was at once the best-qualified officer in the US Army to serve in Asia in support of Chiang Kai Shek's KMT Army and also the worst possible choice because of his abrasive mien. On the one hand, no other senior officer had his command of the language, years in country, or understanding of the Chinese culture. On the other hand, no other senior officer was as tactless or boorish - two qualities that do not serve one well in Asia. For instance, Stilwell had the habit of assigning mocking and often cruel nicknames to his tormentors, real and perceived. Almost from the beginning, Chiang Kai Shek, his nominal superior in the China theater, was "Peanut" - an insulting moniker that Stilwell used rather openly and regularly and was well-known by the Generalissimo and his staff, an incredible affront to the Chinese sense of position and authority. Even more insulting and offensive was Stilwell's occasional reference to his polio-stricken command-in-chief as "Rubber legs."
   
   Yet, Tuchman is clearly a fan of Stilwell's. She sees in him the same talent, passion and energy that led Secretary of War Stimson and Chief of Staff Marshall to put him in the role and steadfastly defend him in the face of repeated requests for his dismissal by scores of highly placed US, British and Chinese officials, whose number included FDR himself. But after reading "Stilwell" one cannot help but think that Stimson and Marshall made a mistake in sticking with Joe for so long.
   
   "Stilwell" also reads like a case study in the perils and heartaches of coalition warfare. From the outset, the major allies in the CBI Theater - the US, British and Chinese - were fundamentally at odds over objectives and therefore completely out of sync on strategy. The British did not see the point in bothering with China at all and wanted only to regain their colonial possessions, Hong Kong and Singapore above all, and Burma only if convenient and if it could be done without mixing Chinese and Indian troops. Chiang Kai Shek, on the other hand, had little interest in ejecting the Japanese from China in a bloody, all-out racial war, but rather preferred to stockpile American supplies and allow the US Navy and nascent Air Forces to slowly erode the Japanese war machine. Meanwhile, the US was guided by FDR's dream of seeing China emerge as one of the world's great post-war powers, fully on the side of the United States and committed to democracy. Tuchman stresses repeatedly that the US public, and to a certain extent the US government, was greatly misled on the truth of the KMT regime. The missionary lobby and other important Chiang supporters, including high-level visitors that were successfully hoodwinked, such as defeated presidential candidate Wendell Wilkie, generated a flood of propaganda that gave the average American a wildly unrealistic and positive impression of the Chinese ally. Tuchman contends that Stilwell himself saw the balderdash written about the KMT as the primary culprit in the inability or unwillingness of Washington to change policy once it became clear that the continued support Chiang was a waste of resources and American prestige and position.
   
   "Stilwell" succeeds on many levels and will likely remain in print and widely read for decades to come. It is a stellar blend of biography, military history, American foreign policy, US-China relations, and a case study in coalition warfare.

2 comments about American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880 - 1964.

1. If you want to learn about MacArthur's life, this book works well. However, it goes far beyond that in the detail it provides and the analysis. Manchester provides good commentary on MacArthur, his strategies, and politics. One of the most interesting things was the notion of how much MacArthur had captured the Joint Chiefs of Staff with his Inchon operation, which led to disaster when China got involved.



2. This book is a classic. Even the title page is brilliant. MacArthur is The American Caesar, imperious and outstanding, always posturing and yet commanding a fanatical following. A complex man, his brilliance is constantly dogged by his insecurities, his successes balanced by his failures and so on. truly the modern Prometheus!
   He completely misread the Japanese intentions to bomb the Philippines and the Chinese determination to hang on to North Korea. His bizarre and brazen behaviour towards the last days of his command points to a man losing his grip with reality. Perhaps, the strain of playing centrestage for so long had taken its toll.
   Definitely not pro-MacArthur, Manchester does paint a sympathetic portrait of this great man.