Customer Reviews

Korea's Sleeping Ghosts

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I just got a copy of Koreas Sleeping Ghosts, and I guess you can say I was moved by it. My brother fought with the Marines in Korea in 1951, but he died about 20 years ago...I wish he was here to read this book because it's so much like some of the stories he told, even though this book is by an Army guy.

The book tells a lot about the sort of stuff that goes on that you usually don't always see in the movies or read about. The big surprise to me is how funny some parts of the book are..some of the dialogue is a rip! The backcover of the book says the book was written more than 40 years ago but only discovered recently. I don't know if that's true or not, but it does seem to have a close-to-the-war realism. The ending is a bit tough to take, but that's all part of war I guess.

It's also got some pictures in it that I think were taken by the author, and a lot of them are of the people and places in the book. I can't speak from experience, but I think if you're a veteran of any war, you'll like this book. I know my brother would have. It will probably bring back some memories, and not all bad ones either. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

My grandfather died of cancer in 1992, so at age 16 today, I was deprived of ever actually coming to know him. This book has given me an idea of the kind of man he was. My uncle, Keith Miller, independently had the book published and through this experience he has recieved a lot of feedback from the book.

All say the same thing - it's not a phony. It's an honest, true to life depiction of the Korean War.

Written over 40 years ago when he had just returned from Korea, but tucked away due to the bad climate toward the military during the Vietnam War and afterward, the book is literally a time capsule of the era.

To honor my grandfather and help my uncle, I created an official website for the book at http://www.koreassleepingghosts.com

It includes an entire chapter preview of the book, all the pictures, press releases and reviews, and more.

I'm so glad my grandfather wrote this book for us and that my uncle has spent the long, hard work for getting this book published.

Korea's Sleeping Ghosts: A True Story Of Heartache, Humor, And Heroism offers the autobiographical experiences of author Lee H. Miller's struggle in the Korean War which saw a young American lieutenant sent to a far off land, endure front line combat hardships and horrors, form enduring battlefield friendships of some 40 years ago. From the bloody days of near overwhelming combat endured in a civil war that was to claim more than four million lives (including 36,000 Americans) Korea's Sleeping Ghosts is evocative, memorable, introspective, enduring, and a highly recommended addition to personal, academic, and community library 20th Century Military Biography collections and reading lists.

I fought in Korea in 52-53. Though I was younger than the author of this book, many of the feelings he expresses in Korea's Sleeping Ghosts were almost exactly the same as the ones I had. The book does good at telling how a soldier goes from not wanting to be there and doing everything he can to get posted to the "rear", to getting so caught up in fighting for the survival of yourself and your buddies that you forget all that. Some of the hijinks in the book had me laughing so hard, I was almost in tears...god it brought back memories! It did a grand job of explaining how you go from hair brain screwing around one minute to hair raising battle the next. I don't think I knew any of the guys in the book because I wasn't stationed near Heartbreak, but I swear they're spittin images of some of the fellows I hung out with!

The fighting scenes brought back some bad memories, and the last few pages of the book are hard to take, but that's the way it goes. There's a romance between the main character and a nurse, something that probably happened to 10,000 guys over there, but those things never seemed to work out. The thing I like most about the book is that you can just tell it was written by a guy who was there; the terminology, the situations, the behavior of commanders, and the thoughts of the guys during battle aren't phony like so much of that Hollywood stuff.

I only got one complaint about the book: there aren't enough pictures. There are 15 or so in the middle, but as a fellow who was there, I'd liked to see a lot more. Lt. Miller, the soldier who wrote the book, looked that things a lot like I did...I wish I could have met him. But I'm glad he's telling people what we did over there cause a lot of folks don't know or forgot.