Counterattack by W
List Price: $7.99 Publisher: Jove Salesrank: 5764 Released: 2008-05-26 Our Price: $4.98 Availibility: 1 Costumer Rating: Customer Reviews: Hang on to your scotch and water Quick, park the Jaguar. Get a refill on that scotch and water. It’s time for the U.S. Marines to counterattack. Once again W.E.B. Griffin gives us his odd take on the Marine Corps at the outset of World War II. As usual, he’s got several categories of hero here. At the top is Flem Pickering, millionaire shipping and hotel magnate, who fights the war from his rented Jaguar in Australia and his luxurious digs, absorbing incoming insights from Douglas MacArthur, dodging nasty comments from MacArthur’s staff and passes from his femme fatale secretary, and firing off coded reports on “MacA” to the Secretary of the Navy. Surely Flem deserves at least a Silver Star for this. Next in line are the old line Marines like Ed Banning and Jack NMI (”No Middle Initial”) Stecker, an upright Medal of Honor winner from the first war who actually manages to fire a couple of rounds at the Japanese in this book. At the bottom is the naive young kid from New Jersey who isn’t smart enough or experienced enough to tell that the vamp in the apartment downstairs from his parents isn’t in love with him and just wants to get in his pants. But, in the grand Griffin tradition, even he winds up with a beautiful and virtuous young Australian widow falling into his bed through no fault or action of his own. As in the first two books, Griffin is unable to actually deal with combat, and not particularly interested in it. There are a couple of obligatory combat scenes, never lasting more than a page or two, and with pretty much zero feel for what combat must have really been like. So, you ask, how did I get all the way to volume 3? It’s a perfectly reasonable question. Although I can say I won’t be reading volume 4, I do owe an explanation for why I read this far. Part of it was the hope that Griffin was setting things up in the earlier novels for a more deeply engaged story of World War II. In that I was disappointed. But part of it is that Griffin is a very accomplished writer, good at the mechanics of his craft, and able to do some things well. His portrayal of the working class kid from New Jersey, and especially his tough time at home and with the parachute Marines, was rather compelling. His characterization of Jack NMI Stecker (never leave out the “NMI”) was an idealized portrait of what a great, professional, non-commissioned officer should be. It was a sort of explanation of what professional soldiering is supposed to be about. Unfortunately however, Griffin loses himself in the liquor, the hotel rooms, the fancy cars, the beautiful women, the instant promotions in the face of jealous superiors who become subordinates, and all the gratuitous goodies that fall into the hero’s lap, giving in deeply and completely to the 19 year old soldier’s wet dream of what life should be like. What was happening while all this took place in Griffin’s book? In the real history, the Japanese ran riot across Southeast Asia. The British were driven down the Maylay Peninsula, cornered, and taken into brutal captivity. The Americans in the Philippines were fighting and starving and dying of heat and filth and fatigue and wounds and disease. American, British and Australian pilots were fighting deadly kill or be killed battles against great Japanese pilots in superior planes. The real counterattack at Guadalcanal resulted in some of the fiercest and most savage fighting of any war, much of it at night, in the jungle, at close range, between men on each side who would rather die than give up. Griffin is a pretty good writer. I can’t deny it. His sentences flow smoothly and he knows how to pull in a reader. But I don’t think that his books are about the real Marine Corps or about the real counterattack in 1942. The Corps series I think W.E.B Griffin(his real name is William E. Butterworth)is the best current day writer. I highly recommend this and all of his other books. This book is number 7 of 10 in the Corps series Where’s the beef??? I am a lover of Griffin and have begun to re-read most of the previously read books. Really liked this book the first time through but now I’m wondering why. There is absolutely no story here. What we have is a 300+ page back-story of various and sundry people, some from previous Corps novels, some new. These are great, fun people to meet. But like the Wendy’s commercial of a few years back, “Where’s the story???” The story in Book 1, “Semper Fi”, was of the China Marine Ken McCoy being caught up and overcoming circumstances. The story in Book 2, “Call To Arms”, was of Ken McCoy overcoming more obstacles and Pick Pickering learning to fly and chasing the Ice Princess. In this book (#3), NOTHING HAPPENS! Series Review Let me be up front about this series - if you are looking for combat action then go elsewhere. If you are looking for a classical (beginning, middle, conclusion) writing style then go elsewhere. This series is a chronicle of what life was like behind the scenes for both the lowly and the mighty. Griffin uses a core group of mostly likable characters (adding as needed) and a smattering of historical characters to explore the behind the scenes politics, heroism, pettiness, and foibles of various historical figures and brings to light many little known historical facts. If this is your cup of tea, well then nobody does it better than Griffin - warning, this series is addicting. Two notes: In my opinion this series really must be read in proper order. Without giving away anything I hate the way Griffon chose to conclude the series which is why I’m giving this 3 stars instead of 5. A first-rate military book! I really enjoy Griffin’s stories about the Marine Corps during the Second World War. This book covers the time from the bombing of Pearl Harbour on December 7, 1941 to the battle of Guadalcanal in August of 1942. Griffin humanizes his characters while not being shy to show personal human courage and sacrifice as well as crushing defeats suffered by the US during the initial stages of the War in the Pacific. I am also getting to know his returning characters like Flem Pickering, his son and Killer McCoy (although we don’t see much of him in this book). This is a compelling novel that just kept me turning pages. I can’t wait to read more of Griffin’s War and his Marine Corps.