Customer Reviews

Beyond Glory: Medal of Honor Heroes in Their Own Words

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Smith has interviewed twenty-three recipients of the Medal of Honor, and coupled the edited interviews with brief scene-setting passages describing the war and the individual's circumstances. Official citations are appended. Acts for which the Medal was awarded occurred in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. Some of the names are familiar-Senators James Stockdale, Daniel Inouye, and Bob Kerry. Most are little-known. They are of varied races, education, and background. Some are eloquent, as is Sen. Kerry on patriotism, guilt and redemption; others are blunt and inarticulate. The one common thread is that they generally consider themselves to be ordinary men who rose to an occasion they did not seek. Several make the point that they are not "winners," since in no sense did they compete for the Medal: they prefer to refer to themselves as recipients of an award. Smith was an editor of Parade Magazine, and his analysis never rises above that level, but the stories of the recipients are powerful in themselves.

This is an extraordinary book. Larry Smith has done a masterful job in getting Medal of Honor recipients to open up and share their incredible stories. What you get are their thoughts, feelings, and memories, honest and unvarnished. The understatement and the humility make their bravery and achievements all the more powerful. Smith doesn't embellish or over-write. Instead, he lets each man have a voice. The result is gripping, page-turning, and will often bring tears to your eyes. Without Stephen Ambrose to do justice to those who fight our wars, we should be even more grateful to have Larry Smith.

It's so refreshing in these turbulent times to read about these heroes.

Unlike other medal of honor books, which just offer the citations or summaries of the citations, this book offers unique looks into the heroes by way of interviews with them. They each have amazing stories and incredibly interesting lives.

Buy this book!

Larry Smith's book brings you the reality of true heroes in their own words, just ordinary folks doing their jobs. Actor/writer/director Stephen Lang's theatrical production of "Beyond Glory" may bring you to tears as you join these men "just doing their jobs" in a most extraordinary way. Lang's transition from character to character is as fascinating as each character's endearing story. The play is currently running in Arlington, VA, at the Women's Memorial Theater now, but Lang hopes to take it on the road to colleges and community theaters across the country.

Beyond Glory is a book full of the memoirs of Veterans. The Veterans are Medal of Honor recipients who are telling their stories from WWII to Vietnam. This is a book for anyone interested in war related things. Since I like that sort of thing, I found this book to be excellent and worthwhile. The genre of this book is Non- fiction since it is real stories from real people. The author, Larry Smith, went to many living recipients and personally interviewed them to get their stories literally in their own words. That is another thing that makes this book so good. He also used great detail and seemed like he was really there telling you the story. I thought this book was excellently written and very interesting. I would rate it 5 stars out of 5 stars. This, in truth, was one of the best books I have ever read and recommend it to everyone, especially if you are a history buff and like to read about War.

The interviews are ace and remarkable in their clarity and insight. These are let down by the lack of context as to the battle within the wider campaign and a map or two would have enabled the reader to see the landscape and the positions, both would have added to the understanding of the action taken by each of the medal winners. Another example is the cover photo, listed as US Army coming ashore on Tinian Island in the Pacific Islands, which is sort of correct but Tinian is one of the northern Mariana islands (next to Sapian which was a major Marine victory) and was the home of the 509th Bomb Group which lead the atomic raids on Japan, a small detail yet one that would context this good book even better.

This book was enjoyed by a 30 yr. Navy veteran. He found it to be very frank and well worth the read.
As always Amazon has a great product.

This is the story of men who won the Congressional Medal of Honor. If you ever wondered what kind of men they were, this is the book for you. Each man's life is profiled, up to and beyond the event that defined their military life. The book ends with the actual words used when they were presented with the Medal. If you don't shed a few tears while reading this book, you don't have an ounce of patriotism.

I thought it couldn't get better than the Medic who wouldn't bear arms, yet saved over 100 men single handedly in WWII, then I read the stories of ordinary men and real foul ups, who showed moments of profound bravery in the frozen Chosin Reservoir in Korea. I read the story of the longest held prisoner of war in Vietnam, horribly tortured, and of his wife, who led the crusade to finally get the men released. This is just an awesome book. You owe it to yourself and to your children, to read about the kind of people who have upheld this country against those who would destroy us.

The book is wonderful...especially if you want to read about just people who through circumstances become- whether they want to or not---heros.

If you want to see some of these stories brought to life---from now through May 2, 2004 you can see Stephen Lang (Stonewall Jackson "Gods and Generals") portray eight Recipients interviewed for this book at the Women's Armed Forces Memorial at Arlington Cemetery. (go to www.beyondglory.org) You will witness a performance that will leave quite an impression

At first, I did not like the fact that the book was written by someone who openly protested during the Vietnam war. In my belief he had not earned the right to even speak with these hero's of America. The author did a great job relating the stories of these American heroes in their own words. This is a must read. We are loosing the hero's of our past wars at an alarming rate due to old age finally catching up to them. It was amazing to hear these men talk about their great deads like it was an everyday occurrence.