The Greatest Generation.

Flags of Our Fathers

by James Bradley

"But no man who saw Taraw, Saipan...would agree that all the American steel was in the guns and bombs.  There was a lot, also, in the hearts of the men who stormed the beaches."

-Robert Sherrod, veteran combat correspondent who had landed on Tarawa and Iwo Jima

It is seldom that I come across a non-fiction book that doesn't bore me to tears, especially books about war.  It is even more seldom that I come across a non-fiction book with the capacity to bring me to tears.  That is, however, what the book Flags of our Fathers was able to do.

Flags of our Fathers by James Bradley, the son of one of the heroes of the book, details the accounts of the six men who were immortalized in the most famous depiction of WWII.  John Bradley from Appleton, Wisconsin; Franklin Sousley from Hilltop, Kentucky; Harlon Block from Rio Grande Valley, Texas; Ira Hayes from Gila River Indian Reservation, Arizona; Rene Gagnon from Manchester, New Hampshire; and Mike Strank from Franklin Borough, Pennsylvania all came together on Mount Suribachi, during an epic battle, on the island of Iwo Jima, to raise the American flag.

From the moment this story begins, the reader is invested.  Bradley begins by painting for the reader a picture of the lives that these men lived as children, and the paths that led them to that momentous event atop the mountain.  I was struck immediately by the normalcy of the boys and their families.  I realized although I didn't know these boys, they could have been any one of my good friends from high school.  It could have been them that were asked to fight, watch their best friends be killed, and then they themselves to make the ultimate sacrifice.  These boys weren't bred for military duty.  They were farmers, football players, sons, boyfriends, and brothers, true representations of "American boys."

As the story progresses, we see these men traveling along the strings of destiny to come together on the island of Iwo Jima.  It was this tiny island, barely a speck in the ocean, that was the setting of perhaps the most grisly war of WWII.  Our troops killed 21,000 Japanese men but suffered 26,000 casualities while doing it.  Two of the six famous men predicted that this would be their last battle. They went anyway. 

James Bradley captured it best in his quote from the book.

The boys are pushing toward their destiny now. Doc, Ira, Mike, Franklin, Harlon and Rene are rushing to their appointment with an entrenched, dedicated defender of a scared homeland.  Peacable American boys, citizen-soilders about to engage with a myth-obsessed samurai foe.  This will not be a mere battle.  It will be a colossal cultural collision, a grinding together of the tectonic plates that are East and West.  The Western "plate" will be the cream of American democracy and mass-production: in voluntary manpower; in techonology, training, and industrial support.  The Eastern "plate" will be the elite minions of a thoroughly militarized society whose high priests have taught that there is no higher virtue than death in battle.  The results of the collision will alter the fates of both East and West for the next century to come.

Back home, during this time, our country was in the midst of a unity that it has not felt since.  Citizens were mobilized toward the cause of defeating our enemies and bringing our boys home.  We were one big body- one arm engaged in battle in the Atlantic, one arm engaged in the battle in the Pacific, while the heart remained in the homeland, with the loved ones that prayed, toiled, and sacrificed for the lives of their warriors.  I wondered often while reading what it would be like to be part of this unity.  I know that it would be hard.  To have someone I loved deeply go away to war, with the possibility of never returning, to wonder each day if that person was still living, to wait in agony for his return; these would not be easy feats.  I wonder, though, what it felt like to know that it was all worth it, knowing the true urgency of the issue, knowing that if he died, he would not die in vain.

Finally, James Bradley, tells of the lives of the three men who lived to tell the tale of the battle and of the ascent to the top of Mount Suribachi.  Unlike most Americans thought, this was actually the second flag that had been raised on the summit (the first had been taken down for a momento) and these men just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

Bradley says that his father never mentioned his part in the raising of the flag.  He never embraced the label  of "hero," insisting, instead, that the true heroes of the war were the ones that never left the island, his friends.  The picture was never an emblem of pride to him.  In fact, if anything, for him and the other two remaining, the picture became a reminder of loss and sadness.

I am a changed person for reading this book. Although I will probably never know what it is like to endanger my life for the sake of my country, I have seen a glimpse of what it was like for the American boys of WWII and is like for the American boys of today.  I have a deeper respect for the necessity of a standing army to defend freedom on earth and defeat the evil that jeopardizes that freedom.  I believe in the valor and goodness of the United States.  I am forever thankful to the men and women who serve and have served our country.  I will always remember the lives that we have lost.

When you go home

Tell them for us and say

For your tomorrow

We gave our today

-Message chiseled outside Iwo Jima cemetary where our men were initially laid

Recommended:  A resounding yes.  All Americans should read this book.

A Bit Of Heavy Reading

To kill or not to kill; that was the question that was always spinning around in my mind while reading two books with the death penalty as a central theme.  Before I talk about them, I want to note that I did not intentionally try to read two books that had such a heavy topic as a theme.  In fact, prior to reading these two books, I had little knowledge and little opinion concerning the death penalty, and really I was searching for some light reading.  Light reading was not what I found, and this had nothing to do with the difficulty of the material.  It was all due to the topic.

Change of Heart
by Jodi Picoult

Jodi Picoult is a fictional author known for taking controversial, polarizing issues and inserting them into her books while complicating them with a legal trial of some sort.  I love her style because I like thinking about these topics and as a young adult, I am constantly trying to establish my opinions about these issues.  This particular novel  was about a man, Shay Bourne, who has allegedly committed a heinous crime, the murder of a young girl and her police officer stepfather. He is sitting in a prison cell, awaiting the consequence for his actions - the death penalty.  While in prison, though, he begins performing miracles that mimic those of Jesus.  He changes the water in the prison pipes to wine, cures another inmate of aids, brings a prison guard back to life.  To intensify matters even more, he has decided that he wants to donate his heart to a sick little girl who happens to be the daughter of the woman whose family he is on death row for murdering. 

This novel is certainly entertaining,  offering a myriad of characters, all with different experiences and perspectives.  There is a priest, who is compelled to help grant Shay his dying wish of donating his heart, especially since he is one of the jurors who sealed Shay's fate in the first place. Also, we meet an ACLU lawyer, staunchly against the death penalty, who has made it her number one priority to help Shay convince the world to let him be killed in a way to preserve his heart for the donation.  The reader is also introduced to perhaps the most real and easy-to-relate-to character of all- the mother and wife of the girl and man that Shay has murdered. While reading the novel, it becomes apparent that she is the real victim of the crimes committed, because she is the one living with the aftermath. 

Like a juror for Shay Bourne, I had solidified my opinions of Shay and his actions.  I was resigned to the fact that Shay was going to be put to death, thinking this was the only acceptable retribution for his crimes.  I wanted him to die for so many reasons- so that he couldn't hurt anyone else again, so that he would meet the same fate as his victims, for simple and satisfying revenge, so that his heart could begin to make amends for what he had done.  I thought I had it all figured it out.  Then, a huge twist in the story totally changed all of my opinions.  Suddenly, I had to reanalyze all of my thoughts and feelings regarding Shay Bourne.  Finally, I had to decide whether or not one man's willing life should be sacrificed for that of a child.

Recommended: Yes

Downside:  For me, the only qualm I had with this book is that there is a lot of religious material in which I was not that interested.  The book talks quite a bit about a set of lost gospels from the Bible.  I found this part a bit boring and hard to plow through.

In Cold Blood

a true crime novel by Truman Capote

In this true crime story, read like a novel, Truman Capote details the true, brutal murders of the Clutter family, a well-known, and well-liked family from a small-town.  The Clutter family was a family of four (well, actually six, but two older daughters had previously moved out of the house) that ran a farm in Holcomb, Kansas in 1958.  One night, after spending time together watching television, the Clutters tucked into bed.  During the night, two men, who had never met the Clutters, broke into the house for an unknown reason. After tying the family up in separate rooms and ransacking the house, the two men brutally murdered the four family members, one-by-one, leaving their bodies to be discovered by a young friend the next day.

The rest of the book follows the lives of the townspeople recovering from the shocking act of violence against one of their own, the murderers trying to evade the long arm of the law, and the authorities, working relentlessly and tirelessly to find the murderers who changed their lives and the lives of their neighbors forever.

Eventually, the killers are detained and are sentenced to death.  During the trial, graphic details of the murders were revealed, and something of a motive was discovered.  We learn that one of the murderers was tipped off to the Clutter family by a former farmhand of Mr. Clutter.  This man is the same man that eventually helped the police put a name and face to the elusive men who murdered the family.  One surprising detail uncovered was that one of the murderers was intent on raping the young girl of the Clutter family, but was stopped by the other murderer who found that act detestable.

One of the most lasting and compelling parts of the book is the perspective of the killers.  It is so strange to take a glimpse into the mind of a person who is capable of committing such atrocities.  It is surprising to see the acts of compassion and sympathy that come from those same people.  It is hard, after learning of those acts of compassion while also knowing the brutal acts of hatred, to decide whether more death is the answer or not.

Recommended: Yes

Downside:  After researching the events that led to and conspired in the case of the Clutter family, I came across some testimony from the surviving Clutter sisters.  They have claimed that some of Truman Capote's "facts" in his book are not actually accurate.  They have also asserted that Truman Capote promised them the opportunity to read his book first and give their stamp of approval, a privilege that was not granted.