Nonfiction Book Reviews

A while ago, I read some posts put up by a blogger, Michael Yon, on his website, Michael Yon Online.  I thoroughly enjoyed his posts and so when a gentleman came into the library with fliers advertising Michael Yon’s new book, Moment of Truth in Iraq, I was excited to request that the book be ordered for our library.

I just finished reading it - I read it over the course of two days because I simply couldn’t put it down.  I’m kind of at a loss for words on how to describe the book, so I’ll start with the easy part: A little background about Michael Yon.

He’s a former Green Beret turned journalist/photographer.  He has spent more time embedded with US combat troops in Iraq than any other journalist in the world.  He is completely independent - he does not work for any news organization and is not paid by anyone.  He is equally critical of both the Republicans and Democrats, and he doesn’t pull any punches.  His picture of a soldier carrying a wounded little girl has become iconic (it’s the front cover of his book).

Now for my critiques of the book: It is composed of different “dispatches” (his name for blog posts) that he had written while in Iraq.  They are not connected and do not flow well.  They are not prominently dated, and he jumps around from year to year with no apparent rhyme or reason.

Basically, the book tries to be chronological, but fails miserably.  Also, if you were a dedicated reader of his website, you really don’t need to buy his book (other than if you want the info in a printed and bound form for some reason).  A good editor should have come along and straightened the flow and timeline out, but didn’t.

Speaking of good editing, you can tell that Michael Yon is photographer first, writer second. He’ll change the subject halfway through a paragraph, and never go back to the original subject, leaving the reader confused.  He also had some typos in here that bugged me (again, good editing.  Who worked on this project??)

All of that aside though, the book itself was excellent.  Case in point: When I read a book, I’ll fold down the corners of the book to mark a page that I think I might want to quote in my review of the book.  I try to find a couple of different sections that might be good to quote, so I have a nice variety to choose from in the end when I finally write up the review.

With Moment of Truth in Iraq, I realized that I was folding down every 10th page or so.  I basically just wanted to take the entire book and post it, because it was that good.  I cried a little, I laughed a little, I thought a whoooooole bunch.  Some of these stories that he reports are just amazing, and it’s hard for me to not tell you guys all of the best ones!

I finally decided on the following quote, because although it doesn’t encapsulate the exciting, nail-biting parts of the book, it does show his unique stance on the political point of view of this war:

All news organizations, from the newbie blogger to the New York Times, from right-wing talk radio to NPR, from CNN to Fox, all ultimately depend upon the financial support of their audiences.  So readers and listeners and viewers should not be surprised when media organizations tell them what they want to hear. 

Happy news for the Left was that US soldiers were demoralized and the war was being lost.  Happy news for the Right was that there was no insurgency, then no civil war; we always had enough troops, and we were winning hands-down, except for the left-wing lunatics who were trying to unravel it all. 

They say heroin addicts are happy too, when they are out of touch with reality. ~Moment of Truth in Iraq, page 214

Like I said, he really doesn’t pull any punches. He doesn’t try to make America look all good, or all bad.  He talks about the mistakes we made, and how we’re learning from them.  He talks about how Iraq is doing better now than ever before, and that the war is ours to win or lose.  It is an extremely thought-provoking book for people on both sides of the aisle.

This is one of those cases where the meat of the book is excellent enough that the drawbacks can be overlooked.  I highly recommend this book to everyone, Left or Right, whether you’re Republican, Democrat, or Libertarian.  I wish that every man and woman in America took the time to read this book, but especially the reporters for the mainstream media.  Perhaps they can take notes on how to really report on a war.

In the end, I have to give it 4.25 out of 5 stars.  With some editing help, it could have easily garnered 5 stars - it was that good.  Maybe next time Michael will contact me to help him out.

Hava

PS FYI, he’s put the first chapter up on his site - you have to download it as a PDF file.  That’s a great way to see if it’s something you would enjoy reading.

I picked up Once Upon a Town: The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen by Bob Greene because it looked like an uplifting nonfiction book. I seem to be on a depressing streak lately, and I wanted something happier and more upbeat.  From the book flap, this seemed like just the ticket.

It was about a town, North Platte of Nebraska, and their efforts during World War II.  The railroad line from coast to coast ran through the North Platte, and during the war, railroads were how the military shipped their men around.  They had trains full of military personnel run through the North Platte 10, sometimes even 20 times a day.

It was business as usual until one day, when they heard that soldiers from their area were coming through on the train.  Everyone went to meet with train, laden with gifts like cigarettes, magazines, and gum.  When the men got out, it was the wrong company, and the citizens knew none of the soldiers onboard.  After a few awkward moments, the people started giving the soldiers the items they had anyway, and thanking them for their service.

From those humble beginnings, the North Platte Canteen was born.  They started meeting every train every day, no matter what time it was or the temperature outside.  They did this for four years.

And when the soldiers got out to stretch their legs, expecting nothing on the platform but a train conductor, they instead got a large group of women who were ready with sandwiches, milk, coffee, cake, gum, cigarettes, and magazines.  There was a piano and often someone sat down and played while young girls danced with the soldiers.  The stop only lasted 10 minutes, 20 minutes on the outside, but those were some of the most uplifting and happy minutes those soldiers experienced during their service in the military.

Here’s one of the best quotations from the book that sums it all up nicely:

“The men in North Platte were mostly gone, like they were in every town.  That one little town could never have supported the Canteen all by itself.  It had help from all the farm communities, all around the area.  They all came to North Platte to make sure that no train ever went unmet.

“You don’t forget something like that, when you’re overseas.  There was no place else I ever knew of, or ever heard about, that went to that great effort.  A lot of people might be willing to do it.  Or at least they might say they would be willing.  But in North Platte, they did it.” ~”Once Upon a Town,” page 49

I always enjoyed hearing stories from my great-grandmother about “the way it used to be” and so to me, this book was a wonderful read.  I cried a little at the sad stories, I cheered to myself at the happy ones.  It was an inspirational story about how much America and its people truly do care about each other.

If you’re looking for a good patriotic read for this Friday, the 4th of July, look no further than Once Upon a Town.  It will make you laugh, make you cry, and give you just a little more faith in the human race.

I give it 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Hava

Well, one thing I can say about Hard Corps: From Gangster to Marine Hero by Marco Martinez: I was never bored while reading it.  The story is a remarkable one: A boy who grew up in a stable, loving family, but ended up joining a gang anyway on the first day of seventh grade.  Things went downhill really fast from there, and he ended up spending his nights doing drugs, trying to avoid getting shot, stealing from stores, and any other grand schemes he and his buddies could dream up.

Now comes the remarkable part: Marco Martinez’s life turned around when he met his first Marine ever, Staff Sergeant Marquez.  His muscular physique and daunting demeanor made an impression on Marco.  He went home that night and thought about his life and where it was headed.  What was he going to do with his life?  Where was he going to end up?  He didn’t like what he saw, and he decided right then and there to join the military.  He scoped out the different branches, and decided that he too wanted to be a Marine.

I don’t want to tell the whole story, so I’ll just quickly sum it up by saying that after he survived boot camp, he ended up a decorated hero because of his actions in Iraq.  All in all, a very inspiring story.

Having said all that, I have to give some HUGE caveats to recommending this book:

A) Martinez was once a gang member, then became a Marine.  Neither of those lines of work are conducive to clean mouths.  I have never, ever seen so many swear words packed into one book before.  Here’s an excerpt from the book - I have starred out the swear words:

“Is dat **** seeded, Cuz?” Tyrone said while punching De Andrea.
“Who do you think I am, ****?” De Andre said.  “I already **** did that **** last **** night, Cuz!”
Tyrone and De Andre said “Cuz” at the end of every other sentence.
“Hit that **** as hard as you **** can, iiight, Cuz?” De Andre said.
“Iiight.  But we need some music up in this ****,” Tyrone said.  “Put on some Brotha Lynch Hung, Cuz!” Page 17, Hard Corps

Luckily, the whole book doesn’t read that way, or I would have put it down long before the end.  Sometimes Marco even goes a whole page without a swear word, LOL!, and other than dialog between gang members, he uses very little gangster slang.  The book is very easy to read, fast-paced, and interesting - it doesn’t read like Gangster Rap 101 or something.  But still, some of that is in there.

B) Martinez serves in Iraq as a soldier, and he makes absolutely no bones about supporting the war and what’s being done in Iraq.  He also doesn’t make any bones about wanting to kill someone (no, I’m not kidding).  If that kind of thing would be offensive to you, then I suggest you skip this book.

I picked it up originally because a patron came into the library and applied for a card for the sole purpose of checking this book out.  When I asked why it he was so deadset on reading it, he told me that he had served with Marco Martinez in Iraq, and wanted to see what he had said in his book.  Since my father was in the Marine Corps for 20 years and I spent my formative years on military bases, I figured the book would be fun to read.  After I finished it, I passed it on to my father, who, upon giving it back, said, “That was pretty hard core, even for me.  And boy does that kid have a dirty mouth on him!”

If the book were ever made into a movie, I have no doubt that it would be rated R for language and violence. The saving grace for me was his love for this country, and serving his fellow Americans.  He said at one point, “I’ll always regret being a [gangster].  I’ll never regret being given the privilege of becoming a Marine.”  He has a lot of patriotic pride for America, but unlike many of us flag-waving Americans on the 4th of July, he was actually willing to lay down his life to defend America.

Overall, I enjoyed the story line and I enjoyed the author’s style of writing, but I’d still have to give it 3.75 out of 5 stars.  If you’re in the mood for a real “tell it like it is” memoir on the Marine Corps, I don’t think it would get anymore real than this.

Hava

Enter the Past Tense: My Secret Life as a CIA Assassin by Roland W Haas was a disappointment, to me at least. I spied the book while checking it out to a patron at the library, and had thought it looked like a very interesting book. After all, who wouldn’t enjoy a tell-all book from a CIA assassin?

Me, apparently.

My biggest problem with the book was the man himself, Roland Haas. He is NOT a good guy. Perhaps I’ve been steeped in too many Hollywood movies where the soldier is the good guy, or perhaps it was being raised by a dad who served in the Marine Corps for 20 years and talked endlessly about duty and country and “doing the right thing even when no one was looking” but to me, this guy was just a creep. At one point, upset with his up-to-that-point best friend, Roland took an ice pick and swung with all his might into the side of his best friend in an attempt to kill him. This was in either junior high or early high school – the book wasn’t quite clear on the timeline. His best friend lived, but they were not (shocking!) best friends after that. A murder attempt tends to put a damper on things.

He also spent most of college higher than a kite, he listed every drug he ever used, and even described in detail the various delusions that he suffered through. All of that would have been fine, if he had gone on to somehow redeem himself by changing his life around, etc etc, but instead he agrees to be an assassin on a lark, and then spends his time either learning how to kill people, or getting drunk or high (sometimes both at the same time). He just isn’t likable.

And all while reading this, I kept thinking, “Is this guy for real? Could he have honestly done all of this, or is he just writing this fictitious life in order to sound a lot cooler than he really was?” Maybe he wanted a good excuse as to why he was kicked out of college, and thought being a CIA assassin was a good cover story. Who knows. So I hopped online to read reviews on Amazon.com, and there were more than a few reviews on there that said that they believed the book was fictitious. We’ll never know for sure unless the guy confesses, but I have to say, I truly doubt half the stuff in this book.

I only got a third of the way through before deciding that I didn’t want to read about this guy any longer. He was depressing, he wasn’t a very nice human being, and I didn’t see this getting any better any time soon. I didn’t expect him to be a Boy Scout (after all, it was about an assassin!) but some of the stuff he did as a kid was just outright horrid.

Perhaps an adventurous soul could read through to the end and find a kernel of goodness and worthiness in the guy, but I would say there’s better books out there to spend your time reading.

2.25 stars out of 5

Havs