True Grit

I am sure you are all getting mighty tired of my fixation with World War II books. So, I am going to touch on some other wars...I know, I know...why so much war? But battle, or the fear of battle, teaches people to find strength they didn't know they had. We all fight battles, every day. Some are important. Some only seem important at the time. We may have to fight a battle to control our emotions after the death of a loved one. A battle to control our tempers when that person at work you want to depend on calls in sick yet another day. A battle to conquer our fear of death. A battle to be patient with elderly parents who will not listen to our good suggestions. A battle with a teenager who wants to do something you know is unsafe (because it was back when you tried it, too).

When I visited Ypres, Belgium, there was a wonderful bookstore devoted to writing about WWI. I chose a non-fiction book there, "Thirty-odd Feet Below Belgium", edited by Arthur Stockwin. After the death of his mother, and his father's relocation to a nursing home, Stockwin found a chest full of letters. To his surprise, they were not his parents' love letters, but correspondence between his mother and a WWI officer named Geoffrey Boothby. These are innocent and sweet letters between a couple who barely knew each other. When Boothby is first in France, he is brave and excited, but the horror of the conditions and the loss of so many brave friends changes him, as it did all of the men who fought. Although these letters were simply meant as a way for a young man and woman to court, they provide many facts about the danger and hopelessness of life in the trenches.

David Sears, who has written two superb books about World War II, has just published "Such Men as These", which is about a war I know far to little about: Korea. I would guess that most of my generation shares my embarrassment at our lack of concern about this war. Sears takes the story of Michener's "The Bridges at Toko-ri" (who doesn't remember the wonderful movie with William Holden and Grace Kelly?) and helps us understand the truth behind it. He locates the incredible pilots who had to fight in this far away place, risking their lives for a cause many Americans didn't even understand. While Sears' knowledge of the Navy, the ships, and the planes all help the reader understand a forgotten war, the book would not succeed but for his ability to humanize the courageous men in battle. We feel their loneliness and isolation. We understand their fears and feel their pride in their flying accomplishments. At the end of the movie about Toko-ri, a question is posed: "where do we get such men?" David Sears gives us the answer in "Such Men as These".

Most of my generation can tell you where they were when the numbers were called during the draft lotteries to determine who would have to fight in Vietnam. I remember hearing the numbers called in the TV lounge at Ithaca College. Back in those strange college days of the seventies, I never thought of myself as growing older. Perhaps that was just what we baby boomers were like. I certainly never imagined myself becoming a homeowner...and the "mother" of two dogs. Now that I am, I cannot imagine myself without my beloved animal friends. I had no idea that dogs were used by our troops in Vietnam until I read Toni Gardner's book, "Walking Where the Dog Walks". Gardner takes us through the beginning of the partnerships between man and dog, their training, and the incredible bond that develops as these amazing animals learn to save the lives of soldiers in peril. However, the cost to both men and dogs is great. When one soldier loses his dog Gardner writes:

"...Jim could feel the thread they'd formed between them, man and dog. It was as fragile as air, but as strong as a force of nature. It would entwine them forever, and it was now a pain so heavy he wished he'd never known the dog at all. At that moment he swore he would never allow himself to care that much for another living thing...."

For all of us who love their pets far too much, Gardner's words about these brave men and animals touch our hearts.

Men in filthy trenches in Belgium, men flying over the frigid seas in Korea, men and dogs in the jungles of Asia...all three of these books are really about the battle to conquer fear and the hope that this war will be the last.