Customer Reviews

The Four Deuces: A Korean War Story

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Author wastes no time to bring you in as one of his men once in Korea. His prose flows exactly how jarheads communicate to each other, what they thought of [post WW2] Harry Truman's WAR,...the Corps and any other extraneous subject matter. He even takes you on his brief R&R to a pastoral Japanese locale. Albeit, the author"s prose is profane, yet in essence, it is pure and typical Marine lore to anyone who wants to recall the precipitious Eastern Front battlefield at the Punchbowl, while continuing on to the bloody, murderous sieges for the rat-infested combat outposts on the Western Front. The combat actions are vivid and varied; however, just being there, reduces the doubt, how it is to being an enlisted Marine at WAR..., which just wouldn"t go away. If you want a view of that maelstrom, this is the book for you. C. S. Crawford pens the TRUTH of how it is to be a Marine grunt up to his eyeballs in mortal combat against a resolute and inscrutable enemy....there was a slogan in WW2 times: "Is this trip necessary?" Well, this book is just that. "THE FOUR DUECES" is a 5 star reader.

Crawford draws on his own personal experience in Korea to turn out a really good novel of Marines at war. The main character, "Cautious", is a FO (forward observer) on the main line of resistance with regular Marine grunts directing the fire of his 4.2 inch heavy mortars in the rear. (Hence the name of the book.) He was there from 1951-1952 when the war had settled down into a WWI-like trench war when both sides dug in to hold their ground and sniped at each other. Most of the book takes place in the Eastern Front area of the Punchbowl. He later goes to the Western Front at a place nicknamed Bunker Hill, again as a FO. There is one chilling Chinese human wave assault near the end of the book, where the Marines hold on but just barely and at an enormous cost.
He has a lot of true-to-life wacky characters in his book like the Funny Gunny, Lt. Les Able, Red and a crack shot called the Candy Bar Kid that really make it believeable. Definitely one of my favorite Korean War novels.