Book Reviews

Book Title: Camp Angels
Author: James L. Curry
Reviewed by: Stephen Phillips
Genre: Fiction Sub-Category: Historical Fiction

ISBN (for MWSA Amazon store): 1598867776

Edward Weinstein is an actor about to play the most important role of his life! Edward and a small group of resistance fighters find themselves caught up in the midst of a web of intrigue with potentially wide-reaching consequences. With this assignment, they will each have to draw on every ounce of their being in order to endure what they will witness and be a part of at Mauthausen Concentration Camp. Come and go along with these brave men and women as they risk their lives to correct what they know as unbearable atrocities against mankind, and endeavor to save the lives of as many prisoners as possible!

Book Title: Prelude to Reveille: A Vietnam Awakening
Author: S.D. Sawyer
Genre: Fiction Sub-Category: Historical Fiction
Reviewed by: Rob Ballister

Lt. Tom Barrington believed fighting in the Vietnam War might be the hardest thing he’d ever be called upon to do. Maybe it wasn't. Maybe coming home was. Prelude to Reveille: A Vietnam Awakening, S.D. Sawyer’s emotionally raw novel, mines the personal histories of returning soldiers like Tom. It presents a hard contrast between the repeatedly tested valor of these heroes and the chilling response to them from this once-proud country. Inspired by real-life experiences of the author and her husband during this turbulent era, the narrative begins in December, 1967, when newlyweds Tom and Meg Barrington reported to his first military station, The Old Guard, the Army's ceremonial unit, in Arlington, Virginia. A platoon leader, Tom performed honor burials for fallen soldiers, many killed in Vietnam, most his age or younger. Meg juggled her career as an enthusiastic new teacher with the unfamiliar regulations required of an Army wife. Within months, Tom received new orders— Ranger School, then deployment to Vietnam. Meg's role transformed into that of a Waiting Wife and a soon-to-be mother. Wounded half-way through his tour, Tom went from combat on a jungle trail in Vietnam to surgery in Japan, to enrollment at a small college back home. Anti-war demonstrations and protests cordoned off him and other veterans from even their peers. Soldiers' pride was quickly replaced with feelings of guilt, anger, and betrayal. Ignored by institutions and support networks that had offered care to returning veterans in past decades, these soldiers could never have prepared for a peacetime home front that would prove as perilous and haunting as the theater of war they had faced in Southeast Asia. Prelude to Reveille: A Vietnam Awakening possesses a sense of time and place that foreshadows issues still facing military families. Its tone and details make it resonate with those who lived during this era as well as future generations who will only learn of these conflicts from a history book. Bravery and commitment to America are not limited to times of triumph and national celebration, but remain steadfast and true in the face of protracted engagement, ambiguous mission and uncertain outcome. In this tribute to our soldiers, Sawyer invokes a wake-up call for the America of today to at long last make things right for Vietnam veterans and their families.

Title: Medals, Flags, and Memories
Author: John and Stacey Holley
Genre: Non-Fiction Sub-Category: History
Reviewed by: Nancy E. Rial
ISBN: 0983416826

On November 15, 2005, John and Stacey Holley unwillingly became Gold Star Parents. Their son and only child, Matthew John Holley, was killed along with three other Soldiers when an IED exploded under their Humvee while on patrol in Iraq. Racked with grief over their son’s death, John and Stacey’s sorrow turned to outrage when they learned that Matthew’s casket would return to San Diego’s Lindbergh Field as common freight. There would be no honor guard to welcome this fallen hero back to the nation of his birth. Instead, Matthew Holley’s remains would be transferred by forklifts and baggage handlers, like a crate of auto parts. Determined to welcome their son home with honors befitting his sacrifice, the Holleys embarked on a quest to challenge the law, and to begin a journey of healing that would touch the lives of Gold Star Families across the country.

Title: I Hear No Bugles
Author: Robert W. Mercy
Genre: Non-Fiction, Biography
Reviewer: Bob Doerr

Link to the book or work with 143571704X

The central theme is Robert's war experiences as a platoon Sergeant of an all-Korean infantry assault unit within an American rifle company; and how a lifetime of absorbed film propaganda and an idealistic quest for honor and meaning plays out against the illusion-shattering reality experienced during 8 major campaigns. The author's twin brother served with him. Collectively they earned 1 Silver Star, 2 Bronze Stars, 4 Purple Hearts and a Presidential Unit Citation for leading a bayonet charge. This is the only known recorded account by a frontline infantrymen who fought in the first hectic year of the Korean War. 106 photos, 7 maps, 18 documents.

Title: A Call to Colors
Author: John J. Gobbell
Genre:
Reviewer: Jeff Foster

ISBN (links to MWSA Amazon store): 978-0-7394-7919-3
Price: $6.99

A-Day, 20 October 1944, is the code-name for when General Douglas MacArthur fulfills his promise of "I Shall Return" to the Filipinos. With over 400 amphibious ships, he lands 165,000 troops in Leyte Gulf to begin throwing the Japanese Army out of the Philippines. Protecting MacArthur is Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr.'s Third Fleet concentrated around sixteen attack carriers. Also, the scrappy Halsey looks for the first opportunity to deliver the killing blow to the Imperial Japanese Navy.

But Admiral Soemu Toyoda, CinC of the Imperial Japanese Navy's combined fleet, and Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita have a general idea of what MacArthur and Halsey intend. They form a brilliant plan to divert Halsey's aircraft carriers so they can send in a battle force to wipe out MacArthur's troop and supply ships.

Both sides commit more than 800 ships with the battle for Leyte Gulf becoming the largest naval battle in history.

Caught in the middle is Commander Mike Donovan, skipper of the destroyer USS Matthew. On patrol off Leyte Gulf, Donovan doesn't realize Halsey's carriers have been drawn out of the way by Toyoda's decoy force. Now it's just Donovan and seven other "tin cans" standing between Kurita's force of four battleships, nine cruisers, and twelve destroyers poised to gun down MacArthur's ships frantically unloading inside Leyte Gulf.

Worse, Donovan isn't aware he's under attack on another front. Ammunition ships are blowing up all over the Pacific at an alarming rate. The conclusion is obvious: Ships in the Leyte Gulf battle force are next. Lieutenant Commander John Sabovik of Naval intelligence is in a position to catch the saboteur and save Donovan among others. But there's a catch: Once best friends. Sabovik has vowed to kill Donovan. It's not just because both are in love with Katherine Logan, a medical intern in California. It goes back two years when both served on a jinxed cruiser off Guadalcanal.