From "New York Times" bestselling author James Brady-the story of Marine legend John Basilone, one of three main characters in HBO's "The Pacific"

Gunnery Sergeant John Basilone was a Marine legend who received the Medal of Honor for holding off 3,000 Japanese on Guadalcanal and the Navy Cross posthumously for his bravery on Iwo Jima. This is the story of how a young man from Raritan, New Jersey, became one of America's biggest World War II heroes.Profiles one of three main characters in HBO's "The Pacific," the successful sequel to the popular mini-series "Band of Brothers"""A carefully reported, briskly written book . . . that could go a long way toward correcting . . . historical oversight."" -"The Los Angeles Times"Sorts through the differing accounts of Basilone's life and exploits, including what he did on Iwo Jima and how he diedThe final book by James Brady, the Korean War veteran and well-known columnist and author of books that include Why Marines Fight and an autobiography, The Coldest War, a Pulitzer Prize finalist

An incredible story masterfully told, "Hero of the Pacific" will appeal to anyone with an interest in World War II and military history as well as fans of HBO's "The Pacific."

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ++++ The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to ensure edition identification: ++++ Tom Pagdin: Pirate Edwin James Brady N.S.W. Bookstall, 1911

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

""Why Marines Fight" is a candid collection of courage and "esprit de corps "that serves as a reminder that when America needs a real hero, it doesn't need to look beyond its military." --"The San Antonio Express News
" United States Marines, for more than two centuries, have been among the world's fiercest and most admired of warriors. They have fought from the Revolutionary War to Afghanistan and Iraq, in famous battles that have become the bone and sinew of American lore. But why do Marines fight? Why do they fight so well?
James Brady, to some an unofficial "poet laureate" of the Corps, interviews combat Marine veterans from World War II to Afghanistan, and their replies are in their own individual voices, unique and powerful. What results is an authentically American story of a country at war, as seen through the eyes of its warriors; a story of the motivations and emotions behind this compelling title question. Included are accounts from Senator James Webb and his Corporal son, Jim; New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly; Yankee second baseman (and Marine fighter pilot) Jerry Coleman, and of teachers, fireman, authors, cops, Harvard football players, and just plain grunts.
"Why Marines Fight" is a ruthlessly candid book about professional killers not ashamed to recall their doubts as well as exult in their savagely triumphant battle cries. A book of weight and heft that Marines, and Americans everywhere, will want to read, and may find impossible to forget.

Praise for James Brady:
"Why Marines Fight
""Brady explores both the emotions and motivations of the men who willingly run toward guns. Read this and you'll be steeled to stare down your own fears." --"Men's Health
""For anyone who wants to know how the U.S. Marine team works in war and peace, this book is indispensable." --"Booklist" (starred review)
"Brady's book succeeds in delivering honest, front-row accounts of war--the gritty details and the hard realities--and provides a veritable smorgasbord of answers to the question of why Marines fight." --"Chattanooga Times Free Press
""These inspirational tales cover as many Marine experiences as Brady can pack in." --"Kirkus Reviews
""The ""Scariest Place"" in the World
"" A] graceful, even elegant, and always eloquent tribute to men at arms in a war that, in a way, never ended." --"Kirkus Reviews
""James Brady has done it again. A riveting and illuminating insight into a dark corner of the world." --Tim Russert
"The Coldest War
""His story reads like a novel, but it is war reporting at its best---a graphic depiction, in all its horrors, of the war we've almost forgotten." --Walter Cronkite
"A marvelous memoir. A sensitive and superbly written narrative that eventually explodes off the pages like a grenade in the gut . . .taut, tight, and telling." --Dan Rather
"The Marine
""In "The Marine," James Brady again gives us a novel in which history is a leading character, sharing the stage in this case with a man as surely born to be a gallant warrior as any knight in sixth-century Camelot." --Kurt Vonnegut
"The Marines of Autumn
""Mr. Brady knows war, the smell and the feel of it." --"The New York Times"

"This powerful narrative is an endearing piece of warrior's nostalgia, written with the accustomed skill by a seasoned writer."
---"Publishers Weekly"
"Graceful, even elegant, and always eloquent tribute to men at arms in a war that, in a way, never ended."
---"Kirkus Reviews"
"James Brady has done it again. A riveting and illuminating insight into a dark corner of the world."
---Tim Russert, NBC's "Meet the Press"
Half a century after he fought there as a young lieutenant of Marines, James Brady returns to the brooding Korean ridgelines and mountains to sound taps for a generation. It's been fifteen years since Brady first wrote of Korea in "The Coldest War, "drawing raves from Walter Cronkite and "The New York Times," which called it "a superb personal memoir of the way it was."
In the spring of 2003, Brady and Pulitzer Prize-winning combat photographer Eddie Adams flew in Black Hawk choppers and trekked the Demilitarized Zone where it meanders into North Korea, interviewing four-star generals and bunking in with tough U.S. recon troops, in Brady's words, "raw meat on the point of a sharpened stick." Brady recalls that first time on bloody Hill 749, the men who died there, what happened to the Marines who lived to make it home, and experiences yet again the emotional pull of a lifelong love affair with the Corps in which they all served.
Brady summons up the past and illuminates the present, be it the Korea of "the forgotten war," the Yanks who fought there long ago, or today's soldiers standing wary sentinel over "the scariest place in the world." The result is uplifting, inspiring, often heartbreaking, and this new Brady memoir proves as powerful as hisfirst.

Praise for James Brady
"Brady has emerged as one of the best novelists of his generation."---Dan Rather
"Mr. Brady knows war, the smell and the feel of it."---"The New York Times"
"Mr. Brady captures the heart and soul of the Marine Corps in this stunning new novel. [He] writes with passion and great insight." Nelson DeMille, author of "The Lion's Game"
"Brady has stormed publishing high ground to become, arguably, our foremost novelist currently writing on the subject of Marines at war."---"Publishers Weekly"
""The Marines of Autumn" is right up there with the very best of combat writing and is destined to become one of the defining novels of the genre."---Nelson DeMille, author of" The Lion's Game"
""The Marines of Autumn" is a masterpiece that recalls the era with awesome authenticity. The novel's outcome is one of thunderous dramatic beauty and power."---"The Associated Press "

The New York Times Bestselling Author of The Marines of Autumn

Late November of 1941.

Half the world is at war and with the other half about to join in, a thousand U.S. Marines stand sentinel over the last days of an uneasy truce between ourselves and the Imperial Japanese Army in chaotic North China.

By November 27, FDR is convinced Japan is about to launch a military action. Washington doesn’t know where, isn’t sure precisely when. But the Cabinet is sufficiently alarmed that War Secretary Henry Stimson and Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox are authorized to send an immediate and coded “warning of war” to American bases and units in harm’s way.

In Shanghai two cruise ships are chartered and 800 armed American Marines are marched through the great port city with enormous pomp and circumstance and embarked for Manila.

Another 200 Marines, unable to reach Shanghai, and serving in small garrisons and posts from Peking to Mongolia and the Gobi Desert, are caught short by this “warning of war”.

This is their story. Of how a detachment of American Marines marooned in North China as war erupts, set out on an epic march through hostile territory in an attempt to fight their way out of China and, somehow, rejoin their Corps for the war against Japan.

James Brady dazzles us once again with a stunning and unflinching look at America at war. Warning of War is a moving tribute to sheer courage, determination, and Marine Corps discipline, and is a wonderful celebration of America in one of its darkest but finest hours.

War has been the inspiration of such great novels as The Red Badge of Courage and A Farewell to Arms, and daring feats of courage and tragic mistakes have been the foundation for such classic works. Now, for the first time ever, the Korean War has a novel that captures that courage and sacrifice.

When Captain Thomas Verity, USMC, is called back to action, he must leave his Georgetown home, career, and young daughter and rush to Korea to monitor Chinese radio transmissions. At first acting in an advisory role, he is abruptly thrust into MacArthur's last daring and disastrous foray-the Chosin Reservoir campaign-and then its desperate retreat.

Time magazine at the time recounted the retreat this way: "The running fight of the Marines...was a battle unparalleled in U.S. military history. It had some aspects of Bataan, some of Anzio, some of Dunkirk, some of Valley Forge, and some of 'the retreat of the 10,000' as described in Xenophon's Anabasis."

The Marines of Autumn is a stunning, shattering novel of war illuminated only by courage, determination, and Marine Corps discipline. And by love: of soldier for soldier, of men and their women, and of a small girl in Georgetown, whose father promised she would dance with him on the bridges of Paris. A child Captain Tom Verity fears he may never see again.

In The Marines of Autumn, James Brady captures our imagination and shocks us into a new understanding of war.

America's "forgotten war" lasted just thirty-seven months, yet 54,246 Americans died in that time -- nearly as many as died in ten years in Vietnam. On the fiftieth anniversary of this devastating conflict, James Brady tells the story of his life as a young marine lieutenant in Korea.

In 1947, seeking to avoid the draft, nineteen-year-old Jim Brady volunteered for a Marine Corps program that made him a lieutenant in the reserves on the day he graduated college. He didn't plan to find himself in command of a rifle platoon three years later facing a real enemy, but that is exactly what happened after the Chinese turned a so-called police action into a war.

The Coldest War vividly describes Brady's rapid education in the realities of war and the pressures of command. Opportunities for bold offensives sink in the miasma of trench warfare; death comes in fits and starts as too-accurate artillery on both sides seeks out men in their bunkers; constant alertness is crucial for survival, while brutal cold and a seductive silence conspire to lull soldiers into an often fatal stupor.

The Korean War affected the lives of all Americans, yet is little known beyond the antics of "M*A*S*H." Here is the inside story that deserves to be told, and James Brady is a powerful witness to a vital chapter of our history.