Customer Reviews

A Rifleman Went to War

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a great WWI memoir, and it gives some incredible insights the makings of a great soldier. As one might expect, Mr. McBride was an extremely tough, brave man. However, this book makes it clear that there are some other, less obvious qualities to the professional soldier. Contrary to popular believe, imagination and individual initiative are among them. Most importantly, though, is a particular mindset. I leave it to McBride to put it best:

"Hatred is a slow, calculating, cold-blooded business. There is no time for it in battle . . . I assure you that when I was behind the rifle, the principal feeling was one of keen satisfaction and excitement of the same kind that the hunter knows. That's the spirit. That's what makes good rifleman and good soldiers."

If you are looking for poetic prose, look elsewhere. McBride was not an introspective man, full of soulful wanderings about the horrors of war. This soldier was thrilled and eager to participate in war, and joined the Canadian force because his home country, America, was too slow to enter the fray for his tastes. He described the mud of the trenches and the sound a bullet makes striking a human head in hatchet-like, blunt sentences.

There is the satisfaction, though, that this lover of war told you the hard truth in every word he wrote. Another reviewer called this book "refreshing" and I will second that.

In one segment of the book, McBride describes his distaste for a current war movie of the time of the book's writing, the classic "All Quite On The Western Front." While McBride complemented the scenes of actual battle, the whole show was ruined for him by the depiction of men in battle. The constant emotions, and, as he wrote of them, "facial contortions" exhibited by the actors where in his view ridiculous. Men died quickly, fought hard, and killed one another without a lot of fuss, or "sob stuff," as he called it.

I believe H.W. McBride is telling me the truth.

McBride's "A Rifleman Went to War" could be used as a sniper's manual. McBride was in fact a machine gunner (he wrote a book about that called "The Emma Gees"), but him and his Canadian buddies engaged in sniping and trench raids for recreation.

This book is an excellent account, and is just about as un-PC as you can get. McBride does not feel that war is simply "bad", but that it is a symphony of emotions. He killed many Germans, and he makes no apologies.

This book is not without its shortcomings. McBride does not have a crisp, 'modern' writing style, and he is a highly biased anglophile. Despite these problems, I think anyone who has an interest in World War 1, sniping, or the combat use of the rifle should have this book.

Anyone familiar with the Chandlers' "Death from Afar" series knows that McBride's book was seminal in the development of U.S. military sniping doctrine in WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and on to the present day. What is less well-known is that McBride's thoughts on "The Pistol in War" (Chapter 10) were key to the development of Jeff Cooper's "Modern Technique of the Pistol" and that McBride's discussion of the "neatest and handiest military rifle I have ever seen" (pp. 335-6) provided the basis for Cooper's "Scout Rifle" concept. This book should be in the library of every serious student of shooting.

Without regard to popular opinion McBride spells out his opinions and experience in the 'War to end all wars'. Not only is his honest (as opposed to 'politically correct') account refreshing, but informative as well. Military buffs and armed services personnel will find a great deal of useful information regarding the employment of small arms. In spite of the amount of useful military knowledge, the book is also lively reading. I recommend it highly!

It might not be written in perfect English, and it's not always politically correct, but it's definitely always enjoyable.

You get the whole WWI experience from the author's point of view, including enough "war stories" to satisfy any reader.

McBride includes technical details, anecdotes, and just good old story telling, in this tale of a machine gunner / rifleman in the Great War.

I took a copy of this book and passed it out to the sharp shooters in my unit in desert storm. I know several USMC snipers that had read it. It is as valuable today as it was in WWI. A no holds barred book about killing.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in teh trenchwarfare of WWI, as well as anyone studying sniper/counter sniper tactics. Many of the "fundamentals" taught today were developed by McBride and his contemporaries and are discussed in the book, including vivid descriptions of the problems they faced and how they addressed them. Additionally, any student of Col. Cooper will appreciate the tone with which this story is told. Cheers.

according to my college classes, a "classic" accurately depicts life (fictional or nonfictional) of the time in which it was written with all idioms/syntax/slang/etc. intact. this is a classic.

Mr. McBride has written a book that nearly perfectly talks about what can be expected from a modern infantry man. He talks about sniping, putting in a properly sighted machine gun, raids, and patrols. Honestly, this book is so good that most Army ROTC and Marine Infantry instruction may want to have their future officers and NCO candidates read this book.

I will give you a story that really stuck me as being ahead of its time. Now, this book was written in the mid-1930s. However, Mr. McBride knows the problems of lugging ammunition. A soldier with .303 British (about equal to modern NATO 7.62 ammo) could only carry about 200 to 300 rounds. So, Mr. McBride thinks the armies should carry ammunition of about .27 caliber. That is almost exactly 6.8 mm. This is exactly the same solution the US Army discovered after 5 years in Iraq.

I liked this book. Mr. McBride thinks both the British and Canadian Armies did much better with their training time than the US military. Indeed, he thinks the US Army and military is overly tied up with paperwork. And that observation was made in 1918.

This is a five star book by a soldier who knows his field craft. Pay attention to his anti-sniper traps. They are still useful today. Also, the book is great for telling about how the Germans would leave abandoned grenades after an attack. Some were rigged to go off if picked up.

As written before, this book is five star. Mr. McBride writes a book about the birth of the modern infantry man. Indeed, their is little difference between a Tommy of WWI with a Lewis gun and a Grunt in Vietnam carrying an M-60 machinegun. In 50 years little had changed.

The modern professional soldier can learn a lot from this book. Some university military history departments may want this book for an individual study of a hard infantry man.

A thoughroughly enjoyable, mesmerizing, collection of a soldier's WWI remembrances. Somehow manages to be more than the sum of its plainly told, shy, politically incorrect, wars is hell but you get used to it parts. It ends up assembling and describing bit by bit the remarkable character of the author.

Also notable to me for how it reaches across 70 years to contrast how we've changed as a people. For example, I don't think this book would be published as written today. The editor would have probably added more polish, removed some of the namecalling and stereotyping and would have thus diminished the book.