Brotherhood of War 04: The Colonels [Paperback]

W.E.B. Griffin (Author)

Book Description

Series: Brotherhood of War | Publication Date: August 15, 1984

Returning from the mine-laden fields of combat in the Far East, Paul T. Hanrahan is promoted to full colonel and assigned to command the U.S. Army Special Warfare School, where his men train for a new war on the beaches of Cuba. Reissue.

--This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Jove; 4 edition (August 15, 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0515076988
• ISBN-13: 978-0515076981
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 3.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,123,263 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

W.E.B. Griffin is the author of more than thirty epic novels in five series, all of which have been listed on The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly and other best-seller lists. More than forty million of his books are in print in more than ten languages, including Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, and Hungarian. Mr. Griffin grew up in the suburbs of New York City and Philadelphia. He enlisted in the United States Army in 1946. After basic training, he received counter-intelligence training at Fort Holabird, Maryland. He was assigned to the Army of Occupation in Germany, and ultimately to the staff of then-Major General I.D. White, commander of the U.S. Constabulary. In 1951, Mr. Griffin was recalled to active duty for the Korean War, interrupting his education at Phillips University, Marburg an der Lahn, Germany. In Korea he earned the Combat Infantry Badge as a combat correspondent and later served as acting X Corps (Group) information officer under Lieutenant General White. On his release from active duty in 1953, Mr. Griffin was appointed Chief of the Publications Division of the U.S. Army Signal Aviation Test & Support Activity at Fort Rucker, Alabama. Mr. Griffin is a member of the Special Operations Association, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion, the Army Aviation Association, and the Armor Association. He was the 1991 recipient of the Brigadier General Robert L. Dening Memorial Distinguished Service Award of the U.S. Marine Corps Combat Correspondents Association, and the August 1999 recipient of the Veterans of Foreign Wars News Media Award, presented at the 100th National Convention in Kansas City. He has been vested into the Order of St. George of the U.S. Armor Association, and the Order of St. Andrew of the U.S. Army Aviation Association, and been awarded Honorary Doctoral degrees by Norwich University, the nation's first and oldest private military college, and by Troy State University (Ala.). He was the graduation dinner speaker for the class of 1988 at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He has been awarded honorary membership in the Special Forces Association; the Marine Corps Combat Correspondents Association; the Marine Raiders Association; and the U.S. Army Otter & Caribou Association. He is the co-founder, with historian Colonel Carlo D'Este, of the William E. Colby Seminar on Intelligence, Military, and Diplomatic Affairs. Mr. Griffin's novels, known for their historical accuracy, have been praised by The Philadelphia Inquirer for their "fierce, stop-for-nothing scenes." "Nothing honors me more than a serviceman, veteran, or cop telling me he enjoys reading my books," Mr. Griffin says. Mr. Griffin divides his time between the Gulf Coast and Buenos Aires.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Solid Mid-Series Book, June 5, 2004

By 

A. Bowdoin Van Riper (Vineyard Haven, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Colonels (Brotherhood of War, Book 4) (Mass Market Paperback)

Following a dozen major characters and twice that many supporting players through an eventful a quarter century is an impressive literary achievement. Griffin's "Brotherhood of War" series does just that: always competently, sometimes brilliantly. The flashes of brilliance are fewer and farther between in _The Colonels_ than they were in _The Lieutenants_ and _The Captains_, but they're definitely *there* in a way that they weren't in _The Majors_.

The action in _The Colonels_ takes place in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The central thread of the plot is the establishment of the Green Berets, and most of the book's best scenes revolve around the shaping of the Green Beret program. The book ends with the disastrous US-backed attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro by landing a force of Cuban exiles at the Bay of Pigs--an operation in which many of the characters play peripheral roles. Griffin keeps old plotlines in play, but also takes the time to service a number of characters who were in danger of slipping out of the story: notably Barbara Bellmon, Paul Jiggs, and Phil Parker IV.

Griffin's ear for soldiers' voices and his familiarity with military routine comes through in many individual scenes: several training exercises, an unauthorized visit to an aircraft graveyard, Mac Macmillan's chance encounter with a young lieutenant, and a running subplot about the Green Berets' distinctive headgear. The bureaucratic guerilla warfare that took up much of _The Majors_ is back, but it works better in _The Colonels_, perhaps because the outcome will affect the lives, not just the careers, of people we care about.

_The Colonels_ ultimately fails, however, to hit the same heights that _The Lieutentants_ and _The Captains_ reached. Part of the problem may be the time frame it covers. _The Lieutenants_ had the shift from WWII to the Cold War; _The Captains_ had Korea; _The Colonels_ has the Bay of Pigs, but not yet Vietnam. Especially when it strays from the "building the Green Berets" thread, it often feels like it's just marking time.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Understanding Viet Nam, February 3, 2000

By 

Northeast Texas Reader (Northeast Texas, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Colonels (Brotherhood of War, Book 4) (Mass Market Paperback)

I enjoyed all of Griffin's Brotherhood of War and Corps books; however, the first part of this one helped me to understand some of the build up to the Viet Nam conflict. I grew up during the pre-Viet Nam conflict era but wasn't old enough or interested enough at the time to pay attention to the causes. This book (along with Tom Dooley's [spelling?]) filled in a lot of the holes.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Creeping Toward War, May 29, 2011

By 

booknblueslady (Woodland, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Colonels (Brotherhood of War, Book 4) (Mass Market Paperback)

The Colonels is the fourth in W.E.B. Griffin's series Brotherhood of War. it follows a group of colonels and other military personnel from December, 1958 until April 1961, the period during which the US military advisors were becoming more entrenched in Vietnam and the time when the famous Bay of Pigs debacle took place.

Griffin, who was a soldier has a degree of expertise regarding military matters and the ability to interest the reader in them through his plot and character development. While this is the fourth of the series, it can be read as a stand alone, because Griffin provides enough insight into the previous lives of the characters without clobbering the reader with facts and information from the other series books.

In The Colonels, one of the characters, Paul Hanrahan is running the training school for the Green Berets, another Craig Lowell is working on the development of rocket firing helicopters and a third, Sandy Lowell is a military advisor to the president. This is only a partial list of the characters in The Colonels and one of the drawbacks to Griffins style. He employs a large cast who are tied together through their back history and through the plot, but the story jumps quickly from one character and location to another. This style can be choppy and difficult for the reader to piece together. In the end, I found the story and characters intriguing enough to overcome the writing style.

I am planning on reading more of Griffin's Brotherhood of War series.