Bob's Books

Why this book: Selected by my reading group.  I saw a review that said that if you liked Silence of the Girls, you will like Circe.  I really liked Silence of the Girls, so thought we’d give this a try. It was different and good.

Summary in 3 Sentences: Circe is a modern story transposed into the setting of mythological Greece, with a special focus on Odysseus and the Odyssey.  The reader encounters gods and myths from that era but within a story about a young woman who straddles the world of gods and mortals and encounters challenges that are timeless.   The protagonist Circe is a witch- goddess who is exiled to an island where she encounters Odysseus on his journey home from Troy – and their love affair creates the backdrop for a drama that is both mythical and mortal, and relevant to us living today, in its scope and impact.

My impressions: Very clever and interesting novel. I very much enjoyed reading it and found the theme and setting fascinating. For me, it started off a bit slowly, but gathered momentum and became quite an adventure of hardship,  growth and transformation for its female protagonist.  I likened it to science fiction, or magical realism, the setting being the mythical world of ancient Greece.  The story includes gods, monsters and mortal heroes with whom most of us are somewhat familiar, and a number with whom most of us are not. As is to be expected in a world where gods and mortals interact together, boundaries between what is possible and what is not, are never quite clear.

Circe herself is a “nymph” a minor female deity borne of one of the Olympian gods – in her case, Helios, the god of the sun,  and a nymph, in her case Perse, one of the nymph daughters of Oceanus.   Though a goddess, Circe represents a familiar figure in modern literature – a sensitive and independent woman, disenfranchised and disrespected by powerful men,  who subsequently grows strong from her rejection and suffering.  As a child and young woman, she was ridiculed by her frivolous sisters, disrespected and shunned by her mother, betrayed by her brother and father, abandoned by a man whom she had assumed great risk to help.

And then by her angry father, she was exiled to a remote island in the Mediterranean (the then known world) where she nursed her resentment at the injustices she had suffered.  But she rallied and chose to use her time and energy to strengthen herself, build her powers and become more independent.  Her life became more “exciting” when seafaring mortals would stumble upon her isolated island, and when she tried to help them, they would often seek to take advantage of what they perceived to be a vulnerable young woman living alone – not knowing that she was a goddess who had powers they couldn’t imagine.  The results are I’m sure satisfying to women who have been victimized by brutal men.  She would occasionally be visited by other gods, to check on her, harass her, or be amused by her.

As Circe was immortal, the time frame of the novel is over millennia, and includes the story of the forming of the Minoan empire, King Minos, and the mythical story of Daedalus and Icarus.  But for this novel, those millennia and other stories are merely a prelude to Circe’s short love affair with Odysseus when he and his crew land on her island on their long journey back to Ithaca after the Trojan war.   Circe had been lonely, dealing with the occasional sailors who stumbled upon her island, making do and keeping herself busy with her study of plants and potions for her witchcraft.  She and Odysseus connected well on many levels, and the opportunity to be loved and respected by a powerful man made a strong impression on her, though she knew there were risks and liabilities.  She knew it was temporary – Odysseus was mortal and so his lifetime was limited.  And she knew he must leave – he had a wife and child to whom he was compelled to return.  But when he finally departs to continue his journey home, he unknowingly leaves Circe pregnant.

The remainder of the book is Circe dealing with the impact of Odysseus’s short stay.  She becomes a single mother, and she deals with challenges that will be familiar to many single mothers.  Taking care of a baby and raising a son on her own, a strong young man who eventually must declare his independence from his strong mother, compelled to find his father whom he idolizes.  And that leads to more interesting and unexpected developments.

The book reflects the sensibilities of a strong, angry 21st century woman dealing with the impact and isolation of having been disenfranchised by powerful men.  While the book includes any number of nasty, boorish, and narcissistic men – both gods and mortals – there are not many admirable men in this book, but there are a few.  Prometheus, who was exiled and tormented (for life) by powerful men, was her hero and inspiration.  She loved Odysseus while he is with her, and later her son by him grows into an admirable young man.  And finally, Telemachus, Odysseus’s son by his wife Penelope.  But to be fair,  women don’t fare much better in this book – her mother, her sisters, other goddesses are shallow, narcissistic, and self-serving as well.   Other than Circe herself, we only truly admire one other woman in the book – Odysseus’s wife, Penelope.

I did really enjoy Circe and recommend it for not only its compelling story, but also the very clever juxtaposition of a modern strong and independent woman with a setting taken directly from the foundational mythology of western culture from three thousand years ago.

NOTE:  I didn’t realize until the end of the book that Madeline Miller included a Cast of Characters glossary at the back of the book – which describes/defines the various deities, monsters, and mortals in the book.  Knowing this in advance would have saved me many trips to Wikipedia.   I also recommend visiting the author’s  website on this book, which also provides very useful background without divulging the story.     

Why This Book: I knew I’d be visiting Pointe du Hoc, famous for the Ranger raid at the commencement of D-Day, and this book would give me the background to better appreciate that experience.

Summary in 3 Sentences. This book reads almost like a we-were-there, since it is based primarily on interviews with the guys who survived the war, which includes the funny, tragic, and heroic versions of their experiences.  It begins with intensive training for nearly 8 months in the UK in the lead up to the invasion, and then the initial phases of the assault and climb, and the battle once they got to the top. After about June 8th they were relieved and the remainder of the book is about the Ranger operations moving East into France, Belgium and Germany until the end of the war.

My Impressions: This book is similar to Maj Dick Winters Beyond Band of Brothers,  but it is different in that it is not the personal account of the commander – Patrick O’Donnell is a military historian, researcher and writer, though indeed O’Donnell knew many of the people he wrote about and felt tied to them.  O’Donnell not only honors the men and what they did, but provides perspectives on the horrors that the individual combat soldiers faced in the sustained combat of WW2.

O’Donnell did an enormous amount of research to write a very engaging history of this one ranger company that succeeded in one of the most famous missions during the Normandy invasion. In addition to researching memoirs, and archives, and finding previous interviews, he was able to personally interview several of the key D-Company rangers, as well as others who participated in D-company operations at Pointe du Hoc and later.   As in Dick Winters’ Beyond Band of Brothers we get to know the soldiers personally through their own voices in the interviews, we follow them through their training and rehearsals, and we get their versions of the operations.    Few of the original Boys of Pointe du Hoc were with Dog Company at the end of the war.  Many were killed or seriously wounded,  and most of those who were with them at the end, had been wounded, evacuated, and had returned to continue fighting.  

O’Donnell gives us a detailed account of what Dog Company did on D-Day and the Pointe du Hoc assault and its immediate aftermath – approximately 60 of the 252 pages of the book are about Pointe du Hoc.  Like Ambrose’s Pegasus Bridge, this book focuses on how with luck, courage, and an intrepid spirit, a small group of highly trained men succeeded at a very difficult – almost impossible – mission.  And then we follow these rangers into the most brutal fighting afterward, all the way to the end of the war.  If the number of casualties is the measure how tough the missions were, then Pointe du Hoc was a picnic compared to their battles at Bergstein and Hill 400 in the Hurtgen Forest, and later in the Bulge.

One operation I was surprised I’d not heard of before took place in the battle to retake the city of Brest, France – after D-Day and Pointe du Hoc, but before Bergstein and the Ardennes. A D-Company squad, eventually nicknamed “the Fabulous Four,” kept pressing their luck, and through an amazingly bold gamble, was able to get inside the German fortifications at the Lochrist Battery and get 800 Germans to surrender and surrender the battery itself.  The Lochrist Battery was a seemingly impregnable coastal artillery site that commanded the entrance to Brest harbor,  and was essentially the model for the Guns of Navaronne. That, and how these guys pulled this off is almost unbelievable – the stuff of Hollywood.

At the beginning of this book, wasn’t as engaged as I was with Winters’ Beyond Band of Brothers.  But as I got into it, I became more impressed with the research that O’Donnell had done and the very personal touch he added to the combat, based on the personal reminiscences of the soldiers themselves, as revealed through their interviews.  Dog Company the Boys of Pointe du Hoc is another great book on the intrepid spirit of American citizen soldiers put into the most harrowing of combat situations, and how they took care of each other and their missions. It provides a great perspective on the horrors and heroism of soldiers in sustained combat – in WW2.

Why this book:  I had read Ambrose’s Band of Brothers, and have seen a few parts of the HBO series.  Dick Winters is clearly the hero of the book and the TV series.  I was interested reading his perspective on his actions.  This book gets very high marks from all I know who’ve read it.

Summary in 4 sentences: This is the back story behind the well known book Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose, and the HBO mini-series based on it – in which Dick Winters was one of the lead characters.  This is Dick Winters’ very personal auto-biographical account of who he was, how he became a soldier, then an officer, how Easy Company trained in the US and then in the UK, and fought its way through Europe, from D-Day to VE Day.  The majority of the book takes place after D-Day as Easy Company engages in France, Holland, Belgium and Germany, and indeed those were the hardest battles that were fought.  The book concludes with the challenges of managing occupations troops in the months immediately following Germany’s surrender, then his return to America, re-integration into civilian life, and finally his long term involvement with his fellow soldiers after the war.

My Impressions.  This is one of the best first person accounts of an infantry officer in sustained combat that I’ve ever read.  It is very personal and he is honest and humble.  Most of the first person accounts of combat that I’ve read have been special operations forces, since that has been my specialty, but the brutality of war and the sustained combat he experienced go far beyond what most special operations forces experience.

His and Easy Company’s parachute jump into Normandy, and their support of the D-Day invasion only account for about 20 of the 292 pages in this book; the majority and most powerful are his experiences in Operation Market Garden in Holland, and in Bastogne in Belgium where his rangers experienced their most violent combat, and most severe losses.  At the beginning of the book, Dick Winters is a private, was sent to Officer Candidate School to become an officer, and deployed to Europe as a platoon commander.  Then in a year of intense combat rose to Battalion commander, from 1st Lieutenant to Major.

This rapid promotion was in part due to attrition – so many officers and senior leaders were killed that officers had to move up to fill the ranks, as well as to make room for the junior replacements coming in. But he was also promoted due to his competence and proven track record under the stress of combat.  On D-Day itself, after parachuting into Normandy at night, Winters gathered his men together, rendezvoused with his seniors and then led a 10 man squad against a much larger German force to silence several artillery positions that were decimating US troops landing on Utah Beach.  He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for this action – the nations 2nd highest award for gallantry in combat.  He continued to perform well under pressure, and the senior leaders in the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment recognized him as one of their strongest tactical leaders.

Beyond Band of Brothers is also a primer on leadership.  He treated his men with respect but he also set and enforced high standards.  His men knew that he would take care of them, but he never coddled them – he was no harder on them than he was on himself.  He led by example in all endeavors and his men knew that he would never ask them to do anything that he wouldn’t do himself.  The love and respect he felt for his men was well understood and was mutual.

In the last part of the book he briefly summarizes his life after the war, and shares how many of the other soldiers fared in their post-war lives.    Fifty years after the war, when Ambrose’s Band of Brothers was published, and then followed by the HBO mini-series, Dick Winters suddenly became something of a celebrity, but his humility and strength of character were constant.   In the last years of his life, he was in great demand as a speaker on leadership and his simple but very effective leadership principles are included in the back of the book.

A quote that caught my attention, from just after describing his actions on and after D-Day, including the action that earned him the Distinguished Service Cross;

As for myself, I never considered myself a killer, although I had killed several of the enemy. Killing did not make me happy, but in this particular circumstance, it left me momentarily satisfied – satisfied because it led to confidence in getting a difficult job done with minimal casualties. Nor did I ever develop a hatred for the individual German soldier.  I merely  wanted to eliminate them.  There is nothing personal about combat. As the war progressed, I actually developed a healthy respect for the better units we faced on the battlefield.  But that was all in the future.  For the time being, I was just happy to have survived my baptism by fire. I had always been confident in my own abilities, but the success at Brecourt (the action for which he received the DSC) increased my confidence in my leadership as well as my ability to pass it on to my soldiers.  (p 94 pp edition)

This is great book on combat, D-Day, on US combat in Europe in WW2 and on combat leadership.  And it’s a fun read.  Highly recommended.

Why this book:  I had heard from several sources that Atkinson’s trilogy about the war in Europe was superb.  He won the Pulitzer Prize for History for the first book in the series, about the North Africa campaign.  I had read his superb books The Long Gray Line, and Crusade and so thought I would add his perspective to my reading on D-Day

Summary in 3 sentences:   This book is broken into 4 Parts covering chronologically the allied assault on and retaking of Europe.  I only read Part 1 (thru page 185, of the book’s 641 pages), which covers the D-Day invasion, the consolidation of the beachhead and the move through France to retake Paris.  The 40 page Prologue provides an excellent and entertaining look at the preparations that allied forces took in the UK to conduct the invasion, and provides perspectives on some of the cultural challenges in the building of the alliance.

My Impressions:  The most literary and beautifully written of the 7 books I’ve read on D-day.  His descriptions are sometimes poetic – the images he evokes describing the land, the events, the people and how they behave, fight, live and die.

Atkinson is clearly one of the pre-eminent American historians of our time – not only    because of the research and material he covers, but also because of the beauty of his prose and the very articulate and insightful manner in which he describes the events.  He is not hesitant to share irony and humor in his history, and sometimes I felt like I was chuckling with him as he pointed out some of the absurdities, human foibles and pettiness that are inevitable in such a very human endeavor as war.  All this mixed in with the horror and tragedy, the mistakes, the role of luck and fate, the heroism and examples of humans at their best.

In his prologue of about 40 pages he describes the build up in the UK to the actual landing, highlighting challenges and processes, and giving a warts-and-all look at some of the cultural tensions that grew out of so many American men “over-paid, over-sexed, and over-here” in the UK.  I also heard the GI response to that jibe, that British soldiers were “under-paid, under-sexed, and under Eisenhower.”  The American military had to put statutory obligations in place for many GIs who fathered children out of wedlock during their pre-invasion training and build-up time in the UK.

Part 1 of 4 Parts  begins with the men in the assault boats and continues through the difficult stages of consolidating their gains, putting Germany on the defensive so that they could carry that momentum through to Paris and eventually into Germany.  Parts 2 thru 4 cover the remainder of the retaking of France, the failed Market Garden and Holland initiatives, the Bastogne and Ardennes campaigns and the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium, and then on into Germany, and finally victory. This review only covers Part 1.

What struck me most about this book, apart from the joy of reading Atkinson’s prose, was the carnage, death and destruction that were required to simply move 30 miles beyond the Normandy beachhead and develop some momentum over the next 4-6 weeks to be able to retake Paris and then get to the Rhine and Germany.

The allies caught the Germans by surprise in their landing at Normandy, but after the Germans realized that this was THE invasion, they moved resources into that area to do all they could to halt the allies, and push them back into the sea.  They did not count on the overwhelming amount of force and resources that the allies brought into this invasion – and no matter how well the Germans fought, they were not going to stop this juggernaut.  Also absolutely key to our success was unchallenged air superiority, with huge numbers of aircraft and seemingly unlimited supplies of ordnance.

I was also amazed at the amount of fratricide – thousands of our soldiers were killed by mistakes, errors in judgment and planning on the part of their own side.  In one case in Operation Cobra, hundreds of Canadiens were repeatedly bombed by British bombers after pulling yellow smoke to indicate the location of friendly forces.  Except that to the British bombers, yellow smoke marked a desired target.

Of the three books looking at the broader picture of the invasion, this was my favorite, and I intend to read Atkinson’s descriptions in Parts 2-4 of the rest of the story about the Allies and their fight to Berlin and victory.

A few quotes to give you a sense of Atkinson’s almost poetic prose in describing the this multi-faceted and multi-dimensional key event in the history of the 20th century:

“Darkness also cloaked an end-of-days concupiscence, fueled by some 3.5 million soldiers now crammed into a country smaller than Oregon. Hyde and Green Parks at dusk were said by a Canadian soldier to resemble ‘a vast battlefield of sex.’  A chaplain reported that GIs and street walkers often copulated standing up after wrapping themselves in a trench coat, a position known as ‘Marble Arch Style.’….Prostitutes – ‘Piccadilly Commandos’ – sidled up to men in the blackout and felt for their rank insignia on shoulders and sleeves before tendering a price: ten shillings (2 dollars) for enlisted men, a pound for officers.” 2

The British displayed forbearance despite surveys revealing that less than half viewed the Americans faovoabley…”Loud, bombastic, bragging, self-righteous, morals of the barnyard, hypocrites.’…An essay written for the British Army by the anthropologist Margarete Mead sought to explain ‘Why Americans Seem Childish.’ George Orwell groused in a newspaper column that ‘Britain is now Occupied Territory.’ ” 22

Occasional bad behavior reinforced the stereotype of boorish  Yanks.  GIs near Newcastle at the swans at a  grand country estate, Thomas Hardy be damned.  Paratroopers from the101st Airborne used grenades to fish in a  private pond, and bored soldiers sometimes set haystacks ablaze with tracer bullets.  Despite War Department assurances that ‘men wo refrain from sexual acts are frequently stronger, owing to their conservation of energy,’ so many GIs impregnated British women that the US government agreed to give local courts jurisdiction in ‘bastrday proceedings’; child support was fixed at 1 pound per week until the little Anglo-American turned thirteen, and 5 to 20 shillings weekly for teenagers.  Road ssigns cautioned, ‘To all GIs: please drive carefully, that child may be yours.’ ” 22-23

“The conversation took a choleric turn: Churchill, who was said to speak French ‘remarkably well, but understands very little,’ subsequently proposed sending De Gaulle ‘back to agers, in chains if necessary.’  De Gaulle, who at six feet, six inches towered over the prime minister even when they were sitting, pronounced his host a ‘gangster.’ ” 34

“For those who outlived the day, who survived this high thing, this bright honor, this destiny, the memories would remain as shot-torn as the  beach itself.” 66

“Dusk sifted over the Seine valley.  Swallows trawled the river bottoms, and the day’s last light faded from the chalk cliffs above the chateau, where antiaircraft gunners strained for the drone of approaching bombers.  Telephones jangled in the salon war room, and orderlies bustled across the parquet with the latest scraps of news.”  83

“A monstrous full moon rose over the beachhead, where 156,000 Allied soldiers burrowed in as best they could to snatch an hour of sleep.  Rommel was right: the invader’s grip on France was tenuous, ranging from six miles beyond Gold and Juno to barely two thousand yards beyond Omaha. ” 84

“West of Bayeux, the Norman uplands displayed the gnarled visage that had been familiar to Celtic farmers even before the Romans marched across Gaul.”111

“Down metalled roads and farm lanes they pounded, columns of jeeps and tanks and deuce-and-a-half trucks snaking though the shot-threshed fields and the orchards heavy with fruit….When the trucks halted for a moment and GIs tumbled out to urinate in squirming echelons on the road shoulders, civilians rushed up to plead for cigarettes with two fingers pressed to the lips, a gesture described by Forrest Pogue as the French national salute.” 148

” ‘There are apparently two types of successful soldiers,’ Patton had recently written his son. ‘ Those who get on by being unobtrusive and those who get on by being obtrusive.  I and of the latter type.’ ” 149

Why this book: I’ve lived in Germany 3 times and studied a lot about Germany and German history.  I thought this would be a good perspective to have. I was right.

Summary in 5 sentences: After WWII in the forties and into the fifties, a German journalist interviewed many German soldiers who were in Normandy and fought the Americans, Brits, Canadians on the beaches on D-day and was planning to compile these interviews into a book.  He died before he could do it, and some fifty years later, the journalist’s grandson put the interviews into a book.  The book includes the interviewers questions and the answers of the then soldiers, telling their very personal, tragic and incredible stories.  He has one German soldier sharing stories from each of the 5 beaches the allies landed on on D-Day – what they were doing up to 6 June, what happened on that day and the immediate aftermath, how they felt, what they thought. HOWEVER, the authenticity of the book is highly questionable and it may be a hoax.

My Impressions: Fascinating.  Whether true or not, these are some of the most intense accounts of combat and the collision between Allied and German forces on D-Day in Normandy that I have read.  Very candid and personal accounts from interviews supposedly done only a few years after the events.  The interviews include the interviewers questions and the (apparently) candid responses of the veterans.   I’m sure some of it is edited in the process of translation, but the perspectives seem genuine and are definitely powerful.  The horror, fear, and violence in  wholesale killing in conventional war is vividly described by the interviewees.  This was one of the most powerful and impactful  of the seven excellent books on D-Day that I read.

This book makes the Nasty Nazis who are killing our boys into human beings.  Like most westerners, I grew up cheering for our side – the good guys – and demonizing the bad guys representing the evil Nazi regime doing horrible things in Europe.   There is clearly  legitimacy in that position.  But war is more complex than that.

These young German men telling their stories, are in may ways like the good guys on our side; they believed what their government told them about the justness of their cause, and were doing what their leaders trained and expected them to do.  And just like our guys, they struggled to survive as they saw their buddies cut down in droves by the bad guys on the other side.  Like the guys on our side, they were doing what they trained to do, and were mostly interested in surviving and taking care of their buddies. 

Many of the German soldiers truly believed the they were fighting an invasion of United Europe and the German Third Reich by a coalition of forces intent on dominating them.  Many of them had good relations with the French and did not necessarily support all the harsh measures their leaders were imposing on them.  They believed the narrative that the Soviet bolsheviks were in league with the fat-cat capitalists in America and the UK to crush Germany and her vision of an independent and United Europe.  Though apart from vague references to international banking and finance conglomerates seeking to rule the world, there was no anti-semitism expressed.  Revisionism perhaps, but these guys came across as genuine to me.

While this combination of two books makes clear the similarities in outlook with soldiers on our side, there were some noteworthy differences between the experiences of the German and American soldiers.

• Many of the Germans on the Atlantic Wall had been previously injured or were too young or too old to be useful elsewhere.  They were on duty defending the shores of Europe because this was light-duty compared to the other spots where Germany was fighting – Italy and Russia.
• They felt they were defending their homeland – whereas the Allies (with the exception of the French Troops on the allied side) were seeking to take back or conquer land that had never been theirs.
• The Germans were augmented by a good number of Poles and Russians, and others from countries the Nazis had occupied earlier in the war, who were either conscripted to fight for the Nazis away from their homeland, or had volunteered for whatever reason.  We were working with willing allies while the Germans were working with often unwilling allies who they mistreated and did not respect.  While many of these soldiers fought hard, it seems that a large percentages were reluctant soldiers, were considered unreliable by the Germans and were unwilling to make great sacrifice on behalf of the Germans, fighting in France, against Americans, Brits, and Canadians.
• The Germans were overwhelmed by the amount of equipment and resources the Americans had. They couldn’t believe how the Allies were unconcerned about fuel, or ammunition, or vehicles, or food – which seemed to be unlimited.  The Germans were used to struggling constantly with shortages, and having to make do with much less.
• The Allies had air superiority and commanded the skies. The Germans had no or very few aircraft to use to attack allied ground forces, or to fight allied air power.  Consequently anything that moved on the roads or on the ground, in the open, especially during the day, was a target.  There were so many aircraft in the sky the Germans could count on being seen and attacked from the air.

According to the intro to Book Two,  Book One got so many positive accolades for providing a much needed perspective on D-Day, the author decided to write Book Two almost as an addendum. In Book Two  he included interviews that were not included in Book One.  Book One interviews were one per beach of the invasion – the author apparently selected from the many interviews one interviewee who most dramatically represented the German experience at each of the beaches, from West to East  – Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword.

Book Two was not so clearly organized – he seemed to select 8 interviewees who added different perspectives and represented different groups than were represented in book one.  For example, he has a luftwaffe pilot, an engineer, a military policeman etc, and he included some passages that he knew would be quite controversial.

I recommend this book be included in any study of D-Day. It is a short (~240pp) and very compelling read.

Caveat:  Just weeks after reading this book and after writing this review, I learned that most serious historians are calling this book a hoax.   Apparently, there are no records to be found on the men interviewed, nor of the author, nor does he reference any sources.  I suspect that in short order this will be sorted out, as it is the 4th best selling book on Amazon on WW2, outselling many outstanding books written by legitimate researchers and historians

That said, if it is a fake, it’s well done, and I found the perspectives and experiences related by the interviewees in this book interesting and credible.    Though it may not be what it claims to be, whoever wrote it seems to have done some pretty good research, and the experiences included are probably worth considering as representative of many of the German soldiers on the beaches of Normandy, whether real or fiction.

Why This Book: I had heard about Pegasus bridge and it was mentioned in Ryan’s and Ambrose’s books.  it was a classic strategic special operation that succeeded.  I like the way Ambrose writes, and as this seemed to be a relatively short book (~200 pages) I thought it would be worth reading. It turned out to be one of my favorites.

Summary in 3 Sentences:  This is the famous story of the glider-born commando raid at the very beginning of the invasion –  British commandos inserted to land near a critical bridge on the east flank of the invasion beaches just 16 minutes after midnight on the morning of 6 June.  The audacity of the raid and how it succeeded by guile and by luck, aided by strategic errors by the Germans, was key to securing the eastern flank of the invasion against counterattack by a German tank division, and is one of the great stories and successes of the invasion.   The book was written in the 1980s when Ambrose had access to both British and Germans who had been involved in the operation, so the book is largely first person accounts expertly woven together by Ambrose into a page turning narrative.

My Impressions:  One of the most fun reads of the books I’ve read on D-Day.  We get to know the players well – from forming up the company, through their rehearsals and long preparation period, through the operation itself, and beyond.  Ambrose himself got to know these men and shared his own enthusiasm in the telling of this, one of the signature events of their lives.

One of the key sources of the book is Maj John Howard who Ambrose coincidentally met while leading American tourists to visit Pegasus bridge in the 1970s.  Ambrose befriended Howard and they went on to collaborate not only in leading tours, but also in giving publicity to this event and in writing this book.

The book is mostly about the build up, training, rehearsals and then the 36 or so hours from the time the gliders landed until they were relieved in place by Lord Lovett’s 10 Commando.   One of their key objectives was to keep the Germans from destroying the two bridges that crossed the river and the nearby canal, so that once the British forces had secured the beach head at Gold beach, they’d be able to move out to the east and continue to consolidate their gains in France and prevent the Germans from regrouping for a counter attack.

After surprising the Germans with their gliders and securing the bridges, they barely held on while the Germans regrouped and counter attacked during the day.  The force did lose quite a few of their men in this period, when the battle for the bridges could have gone either way, but the training and focus of the British, combined with the disorganization of the Germans allowed them to prevail until more substantial forces from the amphibious landing on Gold Beach could relieve them in place.  They had hoped to be augmented sooner by airborne troops, but those troops had been scattered all over the countryside and were ineffective until they could connect and regroup.   Then after being relieved, Maj Howard and his Pegasus bridge force went on to fight in follow on battles as the British moved east, and nearly all of the original attacking force eventually were wounded and some were killed in subsequent battles.

Ambrose originally published the book in the 1980s and is subsequent additions, he shares what happened later in the lives of the key players since the previous edition. In the paper back edition I read, Ambrose tells us what the key players did immediately after the war, and then there are 40 years later, and then 50 years later post-scripts.

A picture taken of Pegasus Bridge shortly after the British Commandos’ successful operation. Note the glider in the background. I took this picture on my visit to the actual site in Normandy. It doesn’t look a lot different today.

Why this book: I’ve enjoyed several of Ambrose’s other books (Band of Brothers, Comrades, Undaunted Courage) and this one has a great reputation. I was looking for more detail than The Longest Day offered.

Summary in 3 Sentences: This book covers a lot of different perspectives on the D-Day invasion – better than most.  Much more so than Atkinson, he includes a lot of vignettes from his extensive interviews with participants, while also covering a macro perspective.  It concentrates on the American participation in D-Day, but does give significant attention to the British and Canadian roles, their challenges, successes and failures as well.

My Impressions: This book is broad in scope, and is written in Ambrose’s engaging style, with emotion and energy, and we feel his own fascination with the subject and unrelenting admiration for the men who undertook this great endeavor.  He had already written two very well received books on specific aspects of this operation – Pegasus Bridge, and Band of Brothers, as well as Eisenhower- Soldier and President  which included much about General Eisenhower’s role in coordinating and leading the Allies during the invasion.  D-Day was his magnum opus  to bring it all together, to explore the whole operation, as well as include lots of great stories he’d gleaned from his extensive interviews with people who participated in each phase he described.  This book is almost like his letter to the American people about how amazing this operation was, and how amazing they and their men performed in this key event in Western History.

Ambrose spends a good bit of time on the extensive preparations and the final days before the launching of the invasion – not just the difficulties of Eisenhower making the decision to launch in marginal weather, but also the experience of the troops. I was unaware that many of the forces involved had been preparing for close to 2 years, and for most, it was their first experience of combat.

He then covers the invasion itself devoting separate chapters to many of it’s multiple facets.  Each chapter offers a broad overview and is full of stories from individual participants, adding the human drama that makes for great history and story telling.

I was also fascinated by the chapter on the Navy’s involvement which revealed aspects of this invasion which were new to me.  Over 5,000 craft of all typed were part of the invasion on D-Day, and bold action by ship commanders was key to the success on the ground – in the form of naval gunfire support.  They also played a key role in saving lives of the wounded – serving as hospital ships, and picking up ships crew and soldiers who in the water after their  landing craft had sunk.

One chapter that was unexpected and particularly interesting was entitled “The World Holds its Breath – D-Day on the home front” in which he describes what was going on at home in both Britain and America just prior to the invasion, and when they received word that the invasion had been launched.  He describes the jubilation that ensued when people got the word, and how they followed the progress.

Below is a quick look at an overview map of the landing area -one of the many maps Ambrose provides.  Below that is a peek at the Table of Contents, to provide an idea of the scope of the book.  D-Day is not a short book, but it is a fun and fascinating all the way through.

Below are a few quotes that give a sense for Ambrose’s style, and how he tells the story:

In most cases anticipation overrode fear.  The men were eager to get going.  The excitement in the air was nearly overwhelming. The allied high command had deliberately brought the men to the highest level of readiness, mentally and physically.  Training had been going on, in most cases, for two years of more. Although there had been transfers and replacement, a majority of the men were in squads and platoons that had been together since boot camp.  They had shared the drudgery and the physical and mental demands of training, hated or loved their COs together, eaten their meals together, slept in the same foxhole on maneuvers together, gotten drunk together.  They had formed a bond, become a family.  They knew each other intimately, knew what to expect from the guy on their left or right, what he liked to eat, what he smelled like.  167

Not many of them were there by choice.  Only a few of them had a patriotic passion that they would speak about.  But nearly all of them would rather have died than let down their buddies or look the coward in front of their bunkmates. Of all the things that the long training period accomplished, this sense of group solidarity was the most important.  167

Pvt Tom Porcella, also of the 508th, was torturing himself with thoughts of killing other human beings (this was common; the chaplains worked overtime assuring soldiers that to kill for their country was not a sin).  “Kill or be killed,” Porcella said to himself.  “Here I am, brought up as a good Christian, obey this and do that.  The Ten Commandments say, “thou shalt not kill.’  There is something wrong with the Ten Commandments, or there is something wrong with the rules of the world today.  They teach us the Ten Commandments and then they send us out to war. It just doesn’t make sense.” 192

Lt Charles Skidmore, a glider pilot, landed safely in a flooded area.  He managed to get out of the water and immediately came under rifle fire.  It came from a bunker holding a dozen conscripted Polish soldiers with one German sergeant in charge.  The men Skidmore had brought in joined him and began firing back.  There was a lull in the firefight.  Then a single shot.  Then shouts and laughter.  Then the Poles emerged with their hands held high to surrender.  They had shot the German sergeant.  220

What the airborne troops had started, the seaborne armada was about to continue.  What Hitler had sown he was now to reap.  The free peoples of the world were sending the best of their young men and the products of their industry to liberate Western Europe and crush him and his Nazi Party.  262

The twenty-eight badly would men left behind and two of the three volunteers who provided a rearguard were captured. (The third volunteer, Sgt Bob Niland, was killed at his machine gun.  One of his brothers, a platoon leader in the 4th Division, was killed the same morning at Utah Beach.  Another brother was killed that week in Burma.  Mrs Niland received all three telegrams from the War Department announcing the deaths of her sons on the same day. Her fourth son, Fritz, was in the 101st Airborne; he was snatched out oft he from t line by the Army.)  316  (Bob’s note: this is clearly the inspiration behind the Saving Private Ryan story.)

Maj Sidney Bingham (USMA 1940) was CO of 2nd Batllaioan 116th. When he reached the shingle (on Omaha Beach) he was without radio, aide, or runner.  His S-3 was dead, his HQ Company commander wounded, his E Company commander killed, and in E Company there were some fifty five killed out of a total of something just over 200 who landed. 341

Bingham was overwhelmed by a feeling of “complete futility.  Here I was, the battalion commander, unable for the most part to influence action or do what I knew had to be done….the individual and small-unit initiative carried the day. Very little, if any, credit can be accorded company battalion, or regimental commanders for their tactical prowess and/or their coordination of the action.” 342

That was how most men got off the beach. Pvt. Raymond Howell, an engineer attached to D Company, described his thought process.  He took some shrapnel in the helmet and hand.  “That’s when I said, bullshit, if I’m going to die, to hell with it. I’m not going to die here.  The next bunch of guys that go over that goddamn wall, I’m going with them. If I’m gonna be infantry, I’m gonna be infantry. So I don’t know who else, I guess all of us decided well, it is time to start.”  345

General Cota came down the beach.. and started encouraging individuals and small groups to move out on their own, saying, “Don’t die on the beaches, die up on the bluff if  you have to die, but get off the beaches or you’re sure to die.”  430

(Bob’s note: BG Cota was played by Robert Mitchum in the movie “The Longest Day” – and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his heroic actions and leadership on Omaha beach that day.  There has been an ongoing effort to upgrade it to the Medal of Honor)

Pickersgill himself met a French girl inland later that day; she had high-school English, he had high-school French; they took one look at each other and fell in love; they were married at the end of the war and are still together today, living in the little village of Mathieu, midway between the Channel and Caen.  557

Why this book:   A friend of mine, who is very well-informed and well-read on the D-Day invasion recommended this as the best book to start my reading and preparation.  Indeed it was a good one to start with.

Summary in 3 Sentences:  This book gives both German, British, and American perspectives on the invasion of Normandy by the Allies on 6 June 1944.  The book is broken up into three parts: The Wait, The Night, The Day, and provides an overview of key events, as well as personal perspectives from those who were there.  First published in 1958, the author was able to personally talk to many who were there and who played key roles in this key event.

My impression: This is a classic and a great starter book for anyone interested in gaining a broad understanding and appreciation for the build up and key events of that most important day in the Allies response to Hitler’s attempt to take over Europe.  It is relatively short at 277 pages (paper back version pictured) and easy to read. It was the basis of the well-known and star-studded movie of the same name of the early 1960s.  It includes a couple of sections of photographs which help the reader get a perspective on the players and the event itself.

What Ryan did very well was give a significant amount of attention to what the Germans did and didn’t do during the build up to and on the day of the invasion.  The reader truly gets a broad perspective of the many dimensions of the event, but the story is told with adequate references to individuals and personal experiences of not only key players, but regular soldiers on both sides.  We get not only the macro-historical/strategic view, but also the down-in-the-trenches human perspective – the fears and struggles of individuals, from the generals to the junior officers and soldiers parachuting in and storming the beach from the landing craft to fight the Germans.

As a first-read in my project to get familiar with D-Day prior to my trip to Normandy, this was indeed a great one to start with.  Not overwhelming, and easy and enjoyable to read. I’d likewise recommend it to anyone.

Why this book:  Selected by my bi-monthly reading group as its selection for May 2019.  It is a modern classic: The novel won the Booker Prize and the author won the 2017 Nobel Prize for literature, and this is his best known work.  I and several others in the group had already read it and wanted to read it again.

Summary in 4 Sentences: A novel written as first-person reminiscences of a butler in one of the great houses of Britain in the period leading up to WWII.   He had aspired to a level of excellence in his profession that would put him in league with the greatest butlers of his day, and we learn not only of the art of serving an aristocratic lord, but of the sacrifices and challenges of aspiring to be a top notch professional.. While “butlering” is the setting of Remains of the Day,  the story is about so much more – work-life balance, and the costs of a super-charged self-discipline which subordinates one’s emotions and desires to achieving an ideal of greatness in one’s profession.  And how we never know the true value of what we serve, and to a certain degree, in today’s very busy and competitive world, we are all butlers.

My Impressions: Wonderful book.  Like a lot of great books, it starts slowly, and then builds subtly and beautifully to its conclusion.  It is beautifully and simply written, and is the best known of Ishiguro’s works before he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature. The book’s fame was significantly enhanced by the movie staring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson in 1993 – which is an excellent complement to the book.

It is written in the first person and as such, is a character study of a very disciplined ambitious man who has dedicated his life to achieving a professional ideal, to living up to the standards his father had set for him, which he set for himself, and to which he held others accountable.  It is an example of “leadership by example,” taken to an extreme.

The context of the books is a three day vacation taken in the early 1950s by a butler – Mr Stevens  (we never learn his first name) toward the waning days of his career.  The lord of his manor is away and suggests that Mr Stevens take the lord’s car and get away for a few days to see some parts of England he’d not seen in years.  Stevens decides to use this trip as an opportunity to have coffee with a woman with whom he had worked some 20+ years earlier at that same manor.  Through his recollections during this trip, we get to know Stevens, his principles and ideals, his self-deceptions and character flaws, the world and the times in which he worked and served his lord, and how he viewed his role in that world

As he shares his thoughts and memories, we get to know a man who has succeeded in subordinating his own emotional needs to his desire to fulfill his ideal as the perfect butler to a great house.  He viewed his own personal and emotional needs as  weaknesses to be recognized, managed, and overcome.  But as he shares his thoughts, we see that he had so successfully subordinated self to profession, he  barely recognized his own needs.  He believed that a great butler took care of himself almost exclusively in order to better serve his lord and his profession.

In reading this book, I saw parallels to the Samurai Code of Bushido, an ideal which imposed the strictest discipline on Samurai warriors to serve their lord at all costs. To become a “true” samurai, one had to dedicate oneself thoroughly and exclusively to the service of one’s lord – the one over-riding principle was to serve the lord – all other  principles and values were subordinate to that goal, and only meant to serve it.

A somewhat tamer version of this warrior ideal is the professional code and oath of the US military officer who will “bear true faith and allegiance” to the US Constitution and will “faithfully discharge the duties” of the office to which s/he is assigned.  Though the military does make compromises to such things as family and a personal life,  it does idealize service to others and nation at the expense of self, and revers such “warrior monks” as Jim Mattis and others before him, who have have forsaken family to serve their country and the military almost exclusively. In fact at the Naval Academy, midshipmen are taught the “Constitutional Paradigm” of values:  Constitution, Service, Mission, Ship, Shipmate, Self.  Self is at the bottom.

In reading how Stevens described his dedication to the ideal of being a great butler, I saw similarities to the military profession which demands that its members subordinate their lives and personal desires to something bigger than themselves.  The warrior profession demands a willingness to give ones life when called upon, for the demands of one’s country.  Even in peacetime and in garrison, soldiers are never “off duty” and must  stay prepared to be called at any time for the demands of combat; they are regularly asked to subordinate family and other personal callings to the needs of the nation, the Navy, their job, their shipmates.   If one buys into this completely and without balance, then one can never give enough.  Remains of the Day takes this ethos to an extreme and we see the costs.

In the military and other similarly demanding professions like medicine, the priesthood, police and first responders, we expect people to take care of themselves and their “human” and family needs as a concession to the long term needs of the profession:  We take care of ourselves so that we can better take care of our mission over the long term.  The opportunity for a balanced family life  is a concession to attract new recruits into the profession and to retain those who have achieved some level of experience and competence. And then there are those warrior monks like Stevens who have bought into the ideal entirely, and who have given their whole life to their profession.

In Remains of the Day, Stevens puts the pieces together of his professional ideal as he considers what it means to be a great butler.  He distinguishes between superficial qualities that are often admired, but the utmost criterion is to “be possessed of a dignity in keeping with his position.”  This point he returns to repeatedly

“The great butlers are great by virtue of their ability to inhabit their professional role and inhabit it to the utmost; they will not be shaken out by external events, however surprising, alarming or vexing. They wear their professionalism as a decent gentleman will wear his suit: he will not let ruffians or circumstances tear it off him in the public gaze; he will discard it when and only when, he wills to do so, and this will invariably be when he is entirely alone.  It is as I say, a matter of ‘dignity.'” 

I found his arguments compelling – to a point.  Stevens takes this position to an extreme which shows the  reader that it is not enough.  As an American, my ideal is for a leader in any profession to also be able to demonstrate shared humanity with others of all classes, while also standing apart to effectively inspire, motivate, and lead.   It reminds me of the tension between two principles of leadership: The leader should be “authentic” and human, while at the same time the leader should be a model of detached wisdom, as Colin Powell said, “Never let ’em see you sweat.”

Remains of the Day also points to the very conservative view that “ordinary people” should leave resolving the major affairs of the world to the aristocracy who are born and bred to lead, and who have the education and experience to make decisions in very complicated matters.  Stevens believes that these great men serve in what he called “the hub” of the world, and their decisions emanate out like spokes on a wheel to the rest of us who keep the wheel rolling.  He holds on to this position in spite of how wrong-headed his lord and his friends and colleagues were in their assessment of Hitler.

Ishiguro in the various interviews with him I’ve listened to, makes the point that in some sense, “We are all butlers” serving people, institutions, causes that we don’t fully understand.  But we serve with faith in their goodness.  Stevens had complete faith and trust in the wisdom and greatness of Lord Darlington, and only at the end realized that his Lord was misguided, though well-meaning.  Again, I think of the analogy of those of us in the military, going to war in Iraq (or Vietnam 50 years ago) on faith that our leaders were well-informed, wise, and doing the right thing.

Only in the end of the book does Stevens reveal a crack in the certainty of his conviction that he had fully done his duty as a man. He briefly acknowledges a hint of doubt that he had any other duty other than his complete dedication to Lord Darlington. He briefly acknowledges that perhaps he had abdicated his own moral decision making to his ideal of the great butler and to the decisions of Lord Darlington who he was serving.  He asks  “Where is the dignity in that?”  And then it seems, he dismisses the thought.

One of the other reviewers of this book placed a lot of importance on Stevens’ relationship to his father, and the incident in which he was torn between being with his father on his deathbed, or fulfilling his duties overseeing an important social event in Lord Darlington’s manor.  He chose the later, and (probably rightly) justified it that his father would have expected no less of him.

And then there is the Miss Kenton.

Though always professional, Stevens had been close to the woman he was going to visit during his three day sojourn.  She also had always been professional but the two of them had clearly been drawn to each other – but out of a sense of professional duty, never spoke of it to each other, never admitted it. She had sought to subtly break through his professional armor, but he had a always rebuffed her – as a professional butler should.  He was mildly aware that in his visit to her he was hoping they could rekindle their friendship and warmth toward each other – and perhaps more, but in his narrative, Stevens only admitted to wanting a competent housekeeper to better serve his current master.  This story of two lonely people, unwilling to address and confront their own emotional needs and connection to each other was a very powerful and sad sub-theme of the book.

SOME OTHER POINTS and QUOTES to serve me better in my future reflections on this book:

His discussion of “greatness” and “dignity” within the context of butlering, but which may apply in other contexts.

“the most crucial criterion is that the applicant be possessed of a dignity in keeping with his position.”

“dignity is something one can meaningfully strive for throughout one’s career.”33

His discussion of the moral distinction between private behavior and public service to a greater good -a distinction not made in politics or our culture today.114

He identified his own professional prestige as a reflection of the moral worth (public service) of his employer and this he applied to others. 114   We should serve those who are contributing to humanity and thereby do our small share to make the world a better place.  Serve a great house and gentleman and through that, serve humanity.  Like being in the Navy

The great butlers are great by virtue of their ability to inhabit their professional role and inhabit it to the utmost; they will not be shaken out by external events, however surprising, alarming or vexing. They wear their professionalism as a decent gentleman will wear his suit: he will not let ruffians or circumstances tear it off in the public gaze; he will discard it when and only when, he wills to do so, and this will invariably e when he is entirely alone. It is as I say, a matter of ‘dignity.'” 43

Great houses and the aristocracy are the “hub” of the world, where great decisions are discussed and made and emanate out to the rest of the world – rich and poor who revolve around them.

He was readily willing to tell white lies to avoid unpleasantness – as when several times, he denied  service to Lord Darlington, who after the war was reviled as a Nazi sympathizer  126

He struggled with bantering, and with the hazards of uttering “witticisms.”

The metaphor of the importance of polishing silver

The difference between Stevens’ and Ms Kenton’s responses to Lord Darlington dismissing the Jewish girls.

Reading literature – a pleasure – but it had to serve his goals – furthering his command of the English language – Confesses and does not apologize for at times gaining a sort of incidental enjoyment from these stories. 168

He was NEVER off duty. The professional must INHABIT his role.  169

How he reacts to the villigers in the home he stayed at – “ordinary people.”194 Democracy is for a bygone era ==  the world is too complicated for universal suffrage. Great affairs will always be beyond the understanding of those such as you and I.  We best make our mark by concentrating on that which is within our grasp -serving the great gentleman in whose hands the destiny of civilization truly lies. 198-9

“Why should I not admit it- at that moment my heart was breaking.”239

Aging:  “More and more errors are appearing in my work.”   (Lord Darlington) chose a certain path in life, it proved to be a misguided one, but there, he chose it, he can say that at least.  As for myself, I cannot even claim that. You see, I Trusted.  I trusted in his lordship’s wisdom…I can’t even say I mande may own mistakes. Really – one has to ask oneself – what dignity is there in that?”

Perhaps it is indeed time I began to look at this whole matter of bantering more enthusiastically…particularly if it is is the case that in bantering lies the key to human warmth. 245

Concludes with committing himself to more bantering and witticisms to better serve Lord Farraday.

Why this book: Written by my good friend Paul Shemella who I know well from my time in the Navy, and for whom I have worked for several times since, when he was the Director of the Center for Civil Military Relations/Counter Terroris

Summary in 4 sentences: Carl Malinowski is a retired SEAL officer who on occasion is contracted to take on politically sensitive missions in Latin America for the CIA, and he conducts these with a loyal cadre of about 5 other former SEALs.  The book begins with a successful “rendition” mission – Carl and his team kidnap a Colombian drug kingpin from his jungle lair and return him to the US.  The ensuing political tensions between the US and Colombia, force the CIA to call on Carl and his team to conduct a recovery mission of a key US official who was kidnapped in retaliation.  But the political issues complicate the mission significantly, and all is not as it seems for Carl and his team – and of course there are some beautiful women in the story that further complicate Carl’s mission.

My Impressions: A good yarn,  fun read and a nice combination of a popular special operations adventure story, complete with a romantic element, and a pretty realistic portrayal of special operators working in the netherworld of strategic, political and military intrigue.  Paul Shemella has worked in that world, not only in Latin America as the senior SEAL working counter-drug operations throughout South and Central America, but all over the world in his subsequent positions in Europe and Africa on active duty, and then later travelling to capitals all over the world to teach political military affairs and leadership to senior military and civilian leaders on behalf of the Naval Post Graduate School. He’s seen America at its best and worst overseas, and also worked with special operators and country teams, senior military leaders, and other counterparts all over the world.

The book starts on a mission in Latin America in which the team of former SEALs abducts a major drug kingpin for return to the states for trial.  After that success, the team returns to their civilian lives, and we spend the next portion of book getting to know Carl, his life, and we get to know some of the other characters who will play key roles in the drama as tensions brew between the US and Colombia.  Then, Carl and his team are called on again to help resolve a crisis that requires particularly sharp and reliable special operations expertise and experience in Latin America, and Carl and his team are a proven resource.

From a special operations perspective, I particularly enjoyed his descriptions of how the operators worked together preparing for and conducting their operations.  His descriptions of scenes in the jungles and on the rivers of Latin America clearly indicated that he had been there, done that.  I also enjoyed his portrayal of country team dynamics in Colombia.  I have had some experience myself in the often chaotic world of  country-team politics, trying to get the job done while dealing with all the personality and ego dynamics, and inter-agency competition.  Paul’s depictions rang true and were reminiscent of my own experiences.

On the less positive side, I did feel that his former SEALs were a bit too idealized for my taste.   They were all really good guys, very skilled operators, super motivated and super locked-on and committed to each other and their mission.  My own experience has not always been so positive – a lot of SEALs are indeed selflessly committed to each other and their mission, but others are not quite so selfless.  Especially after leaving the culture of the Navy and the Teams, many if not most SEALs are ready to make other commitments in life.  When called upon to perform primarily for money, working for other agencies, defense contractors, or other corporate entities outside of the culture of the military, loyalties and commitments are often not as strong.   In fact, for Carl Malinowski himself, this tension between his commitments to serve military-like objectives outside the military, and his desire for a new life was a key sub-theme in the book.  

I also felt that the the bad guys in Jungle Rules were perhaps a bit too evil, and the women perhaps also a bit too idealized – I wish I could have met such super-hot, intelligent, multi-dimensional women as those portrayed in this story.   I would have liked a bit more depth and dimension to the interesting characters in this book – but perhaps that is a limitation built into making a popular romantic adventure novel in 230 or so pages.  As a guy who has lived in that world, I was sometimes not just letting myself enjoy the story, but was noting what didn’t quite jive with my own experience or what wasn’t there that I expected to see.   These weren’t big distractions, and I enjoyed the book.  Paul wrote a good adventure story for SEALs and non-SEALs alike, which indeed did do justice to the SEAL Teams and SEAL Team values.

As the story moved toward its culmination, I was truly drawn in, and the last half of the book became a real page turner.   The final operation brought the story to its fast-moving and satisfying conclusion.  And Paul put in a nice twist at the end – I couldn’t stop reading until I found out how it would all turn out.  I spent an enjoyable afternoon turning pages and staying very engaged, speeding through the last half to third of the book.

Jungle Rules offers not only a good adventure story, but also some great insights into special operations in the political-military counter-drug netherworld of Latin America.