The Highest Ranking Private on Guam Ben's War with the U. S.
Marines is biographical account of the charming and hilarious World
War II misadventures of Pfc. Ben Green--a low ranking but
quick-witted individualist who battled the system in order to serve
his country with honor and to stay alive so he could return home to
his family. Facing a draft notice Ben, a resourceful nonconformist
and Chicago radio producer with a wife and two small children,
enlisted at age 35 with the understanding that he would serve as an
officer in Marine Corps intelligence. When he learned too late he
was too old for the job he'd been promised, he found himself
training in the infantry with angry kids half his age. Back home,
his wife Alice struggled with making ends meet, managing the
household, and fear of the unthinkable, as she waited in terror for
word of Ben's assignment to the next island invasion. His four-year
old son, deprived of his doting dad, suffered from the trauma of
separation, while his infant daughter didn't know her father from
the man on the cover of Time. Like Luther Billis in James
Michener's Tales of the South Pacific, however, Ben dealt with both
the absurdity and opportunity of military life. He learned how to
work the system and talked his way into an assignment where his
knowledge of radio could be useful to the war effort. By default he
was running the Armed Forces Radio Station on the island of Guam at
the nerve center of the war, when his shining moment was heard
around the world. This book is richly illustrated with Ben Green's
sketches, sent home in his letters to describe his life to his
children, and family photographs. The reader will relive the
travails of a typical family, separated by circumstance and
distance, who, like millions of courageous military families,
risked life, property and personal well-being for a greater cause.
Ben's story also bears witness to America's Finest Hour, in Winston
Churchill's phrase, when Americans from every walk of life pulled
together to defeat aggression and tyranny. In speaking for the
citizen soldiers and their supporters back home, it illustrates the
social history of rationing and wartime austerity, and for the
first time ever, records a unique moment in broadcast history, when
Ben Green, de facto station manager, and his cohorts at Armed
Forces Radio Station WXLI on Guam, scooped the big news a weary
world was waiting to hear.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
