Customer Reviews

Pogiebait's War: A Son's quest for His Father's Wartime LIfe

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

 

 

This is grunt-level wartime history worthy of Stephen Ambrose. It's the story of a Marine in the Pacific, written by his military-officer son and drawing on wartime diaries, official records, and interviews with surviving members of his unit, the Marine Ninth Defense Battalion. McCall makes clear the hardships these men endured, the camaraderie that they shared, and the way in which their experiences changed their lives forever. In fact, the book's backstory is his coming to understand how many of the personality characteristics that made his father a hard man to know were products of the Pacific War. If you're interested in military history, you won't be disappointed in this book.

A mutual acquaintance of mine and the author's sent me this book, knowing my own father served in the Marines during World War II. My dad always told funny stories about his experience, but never anything unpleasant. This book helped me see what my dad's experience must have been like. It reminded me of another book, After Long Silence, in which a woman's search for her parents'WWII era secrets unlocks whole aspects of their personalities theretofore unknown to her. I'm not a war or history buff, but I recommend this for anyone who asks, "what were my parents like when they were young?" or wonders about the experiences that shaped their parents' views.

I'm a former Marine and found this looking for war books. I don't get it--is it supposed to be about the author's father? Lots of statistical type information that bogs you down. Doesn't really work as a biography or a technical book. I didn't think the book contributed anything new or particularly exciting to the study of World War Two or to the history of the Marines.