Customer Reviews

American Samurai: Myth and Imagination in the Conduct of Battle in the First Marine Division 1941-1951

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(7)

 

 

Cameron's analysis of the making of the Marine Corps and its WWII operations (as relating to the 1st Marine Division) is an exceptional reading experience. This book is not for everyone - contrary to an endorsement on the back cover, there is plenty of jargon embedded here and some made-up words. This is probably where the "ivory tower" criticism comes from. But, once the reader gets past the introduction, which establishes the theoretical foundation for the book, the issues that Cameron raises and the methodology he uses to deconstruct the making of fighting men are quite fascinating. War is not a gentle enterprise and it should be expected that nations and military institutions will do whatever they think necessary to train and indoctrinate their young men (and women) to risk their own lives and take those of the enemy. How the USMC did this in the years between WWI and WWII, and sustained their own unique myth and ethos is an important story.

Cameron does give justice to the fighting environment of the Pacific theater and the qualities and tenacity of the Japanese; factors which did and should have conditioned the mentality of the Marines fighting there. Cameron openly discusses tactical blunders (Col. Puller's insistance on frontal assaults as a measure of manliness) and the Marine's general tolerance of high casualties. This is an ethos born from the myth that Marines are "the first to fight," etc. Some will disagree with the conclusions and methods employed (the author freely makes much of and extrapolates freely from literary fiction written by veterans after the war) and the cutting comments about Marine operations and fighting skill are certain to hit a sensitive mark. Nonetheless, American Samurai is a book worth reading and considering for how one American military institution crafted its fighting prowess and sustained it over several years in one of the most hellish envirnoments imaginable and against a formidable and skilled opponent.

Finally someone has the guts to admit what actually occured in the Pacific war in WW@. Both my uncles were Marines involved in the battles of Peleliu, Okinawa and Tarawa, and their experiences are mirrored exactly in this book. It was almost a ritual for the Marines, once after killing Japanese soldiers, to harvest various body parts, including teeth, ears, and even cutting off the heads and boiling the flesh off dead Japanese soldiers and sending them back to families in the states to use as cigarette trays! My uncles were taught from the first day of boot camp that the Japanese weren't even human and deserved such treatment. I congratulate the author for being brave enought to withstand the obvious charges of "revisionism" and "political correctness" that his book would elicit.

While the author uses complex and delineated occurances in military history, his opinion openly and incorrectly bears his philosophical presuppositions on war and the nature of fighting war. It is evident that the author is a social commentator on the subject and not an actual participant in said events. The fact of the matter is that war by its very nature and existance is a brutal and vile scourge on humanity. I understand this all to well. What belies opinions and books like this is a false belief that superior knoweledge of anti-war will stop them (future wars) from happening. How can this explain the religious fanaticim exemplified in the mideast under the auspicious of an Islamic Jiad. No, there is no war that is clean and antiseptic. You cannot with any intelligence send men or women into combat without preparing them fro the stark realities of it. The better prepared an individual is ensures an improved chance for survival. If I had to go back into a combat situation I would gladly take any Marine over this author or any one else with an hallucination of reality. Seemingly intelligent and opinionated people which espouse the "Athinean, right never has to fight" view (to the Spartan world) should always preface their books and opinions with the caveat that they have never had to do "dirty work" in the real world. Remember, it was men like Chamberlin that cost the world over 60 million dead.

Organizations must have identities, however manufactured or inbred, and the Marine Corps is not immune to such an eminently human and natural tendency. I've been a Marine for much of my life, and Cameron is right. Further, anyone with the intellectual courage to contact and speak with him will discover that, alas, he enjoyed his service, he loves the Corps, and is still involved with it as a cultural institution. Anyone who has a problem with Cameron also has a problem with the revered Marine General Smedley Butler, two-time Medal of Honor winner. At the end of his career, he wrote a book entitled "War is a Racket", also available here on Amazon. He makes some equally disturbing revelations about the Marine Corps he served, claiming that he had spent his career as an instrument of American imperialism. Chew on that one, devil dogs.

This book, while occasionally going a bit far out in its analysis, does with frightening accuracy portray both the historical and real Marine Corps. It serves as a much needed counterbalance to Thomas Ricks' "Making the Corps". To my mind, the Marines need more thinking men like him to expose some of the sinister dysfunctions of our virtual religion. Call him the Martin Luther of the Corps.

I was a student of Prof Cameron at Old Dominion and it amazes me that people advocate book burning just because they disagree with his ideas. He was decried as a racist on campus and these fools denounce him for sitting in an ivory tower. This book is written as an academic work and should be treated as such. It has to be taken dispassionately, I'm a former Marine and not did not see anything revisionist in his work. If you are too afraid to hold a mirror to yourself don't read this book---stick to Clancy-he uses small word and easy sentences.

This is nothing but pure .B.S. about our "beloved Marine Corps" to whom we need to honor and respect,NOT attempt to destroy!My father in law was a pacific Marine wounded on the canal you never met a nicer man, never ever bragged not once about his war time service.I am a ex Marine, my son is ex. Marine,my four nephews are ex. Marines also and two of my brother in laws are ex.Marines!This kind of writing is just to trash the CORPS nothing else.Just my proud opinion.

The authors Cameron's craven attempt to attack the finest fighting force in history is nothing new. Such behavior is often found in those who shrink from duty, honor, country and allow their betters to suffer in their stead.

The Camerons are not fit to utter the phrase, "Marine Corps", let alone offer an opinion of its war fighting preeminence... Tens of thousands of voices long dead shout them down.

I couldn't help but wonder whether Cameron, who the book jacket noted was a former Marine, had some axe to grind with the Corps. His radically revisionist examination of the combat record of the 1st Marine Division, a unit which lost no battles in either World War II or Korea, can only be termed baffling. More puzzling is his treatment of Marine training, which sustained almost half a million men through a series of savagely violent battles from Wake Island to Okinawa to Chosin Reservoir. Veterans like William Manchester and Eugene B. Sledge provide balanced, accurate analyses of USMC wartime training and its effect on the Marines in combat. I don't know what upset Craig Cameron when he served, but "American Samurai" seems to be a clear attempt to get back at the Corps.

This book will come in handy when winter comes and I need to start a fire. The last time I heard such dribble about the Corps, I was in a bar full of drunk Sailors. At least they still respect our fighting abilities and thank God we fight on their side. To the author, your attemt at revisionist history will fall flat.

Revisionist history notwithstanding, Cameron has, from the safety and comfort of high office, done a predictable and credible job of coloring himself the same shade of yellow as his contemporaries, most routinely referred to these days as "Journalists." To quote a better man, Cameron has shown himself to be, "One of the great fiction writers of our time."˙