Customer Reviews

Brave Men, Gentle Heroes: American Fathers and Sons in World War II and Vietnam

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Before I read this book, I had little interest in warfare. The title caught my interest and I figured I'd give it a shot.

Even if you're a pacifist, even if war is the last thing you care to read about, this book is just an amazing read. It's a war book that reads like a novel with each story you read. You learn about the history, and you're learning about it first hand. I've never learned so much about World War II or Vietnam from the perspective of a real person. It's not just the facts, it's the emotions, it's every detail. I would reccommend this book to anyone looking for a good, emotional read, not just a war enthusiast.

Having treated veterans of WWII and Vietnam for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, I recommend this book highly. Mr. Takiff has written a profound account of what war does to the human spirit. "Brave men, gentle heroes' is well written with interesting biographic details which add to the insightful pictures of our veterans. Hearing their own voices adds to the power of the message.

This book is riveting and I'm so glad I bought it. As a 50-year-old whose father served in WWII and who narrowly missed being drafted for Vietnam, our relationships to the two wars affected our father-son relationship deeply. These fathers and sons talk about their war experiences, and how the wars affect their lives and relationships.

The author has done a great job of finding father-son pairs and presenting their compelling stories.

I have always been interested in history and the wars that come along with it. My grandfather served 30 years in the Navy and fought in WWII, Korea, and 'Nam. Because of all that time he had spent serving his country he felt that nobody else in the family should ever have to enter the military. I didn't know why until I read this book. The stories of the fathers and their sons were so vivid and grim and sometimes humorous. My grandpa would only ever tell me the humorous stories he had throughout his service. This book is like listening to a bunch of grandfathers and fathers tell their stories in a most intimate way. No glossing it over, just the raw truth. Now I understand why my grandpa refused to let me join the Navy after highschool. He had done enough for all of us. He didn't want us to go because of all of the trauma he still deals with! These men in the book are wonderful men. They're not perfect and don't claim to be. Read this book and reflect on the men and women in the military, past and present.

Michael Takiff takes the words of the veterans he interviews and puts them on paper for an average citizen to read and appreciate. With this book, you will read raw and truthful vantagepoints on two very important wars on our country's history.

Not every veteran believes the sacrifice they made was beneficial, and that's an important thing to remember and appreciate. Some of these veterans question the things they did and saw. It's important that they do that because if we don't question our history, we can't learn from it. Some of these veterans look back fondly on their experiences even though they went through very difficult times, and some of them have very negative thoughts despite relatively lesser difficulties. No two people expereince the exact same things and no two people will view them the same way if they did. It's important to understand that war means many different things to many people and that the people that fight wars are human beings, citizens, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters. This book helps you appreciate that.

Both of my grandfathers and one of my grandmothers were veterans (one grandfather of a vet of WWII and the other two were Korean veterans). My grandfather who fought in WWII spoke often about his experiences, but mostly about his brothers in arms and the comraderie they shared. There's a lot of that in this book, but there's a lot more raw emotion to experience from the men in this book who talk about the horrible things they experienced. My grandfather never spoke of those things and thinking about it now makes me sad for him because I know he must have had a terrible pain in his heart. By all external indications, he was the happiest man alive, despite being confined to a wheel-chair because of war injuries, but there's no way that he didn't think back on his experiences and feel some pain. I know that now and can appreciate it after having read this book.

That's what this book does, it helps you appreciate what these men went through and what our men and women in the armed forces are going through now. Sure some of them have problems that they're dealing with and there are some veterans with problems that probably aren't dealt with. That's what is important to remember. One review stated that this book makes you scared to sit next to a veteran on the bus. For me, it does the opposite. It makes me want to sit next to them and say, "Thankyou, for your service."

For the first 200 pages or so I wondered what the point of the book was. After that I figured it out. If you really want some "feel" for how men thought before, during, and after these wars, one way is to immurse yourself in their stories told first hand. By the end of the book I really felt like I had a better understanding of what people experienced.

Viet Nam was primarily a political war and many viewpoints are represented among those interviewed. It was nice not to have those opinions sanitized. I could not tell if their was an agenda to this book since many viewpoints were portrayed.

I felt I got my money's worth from just reading the chapters from the Novosels and Tarbells. You could make a great movie about the Novosels or Tarbells with no problem!

An unexpected thrill for me was reading the kind things said by Albert Tarbell about my uncle and our family. I knew that Albert had been interviewed for a book, but had no idea what he said until I read it. In real life you will not meet a nicer, humbler person.

If you are bored by living history, do not read this book. If you want to raise your level of understanding about what happened to the lives of men during and after wartime by a notch or two, this book is a valuable resource. (Dr. Phil Rosenkrantz, Cal Poly University, Pomona, CA)

This is not a book that I would normally have picked up at the bookstore but the beautiful cover drew my interest and the photographs inside made me curious to learn more about the men who were the subjects of these interviews. Michael Takiff lets these men tell their stories of fear and camaraderie, destruction and struggle, family and the return to regular life in a way that brings these men to life. The brief overview of the historical situation at the time helps put the soldiers and their memories in context. Some chapters are painful to read but in these scary times it was reassuring to be reminded how courageous people can be in very tough situations far from home. I found this book compelling and elegantly written.

Fathers who fought in World War Two, sons who fought in Vietnam. They tell their stories in MIchael Takiff's book with honesty, poignancy, pain, and love. Perhaps the most striking of the many voices in this book are the father and son, who, through amazing circumstances, ended up flying helicopters together in a Dustoff medevac unit in VIetnam, where the father, also a WWII flying veteran, won the Congressional Medal of Honor.

You can read this book striaght through, or, as I did, dip in and out for different stories and moments. Either way, chances are you will find yourself not wanting to stop as these veterans take you first to the front lines, and then back into their families and homes and sometimes even into their dreams.

Compelling and moving.

If you are a student of history, or you are into family dynamics, or you just like a compelling story, this excellent read is for you. The author interviewed father and son pairs who are World War 2 and Vietnam War vets about their lives and experiences. These stories are riveting and moving, sometimes funny, sometimes sad, sometimes horrifying but always vividly descriptive. If you were alive during these wars, or if you weren't, you will also get a thoughtful historical perspective from the narratives and from Takiff's excellent commentary.

I read this book with great interest, having just finished Mike Jackson's exciting and inspirational Naked In Da Nang. This book also features Lt. Col. Jackson's story as well as his father's (Edmund Jackson served in World War II, hence the father/son connection). But I was terribly disppointed. Brave Men is disjointed and awkward and it seems to play to those who want to believe that veterans are semi-dysfunctional, given the horrific acts they experienced. Instead of humanizing our fighting men, Mr. Takiff's book seems hell-bent on showing only the grim and disturbing side of military service. While Jackson's book doesn't sugarcoat the realities of war, it maintains a very optimistic stance -- one that leaves the reader proud of our men in uniform, not concerned about sitting next to them on a bus!