That Sacred Bond of Brotherhood: The Boys' Crusade
Fussell, Paul
The Boys' Crusade: The American Infantry in Northwestern Europe, 1944-45 by Paul Fussell (Modern Library, 208 pages, $19.95) Reviewed by Col. David H. Hackworth T HE BOYS' CRUSADE is a book that...
...60 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR NOVEBMER 2003 instead of finding other, peaceful ways to resolve conflicts...
...In 1939, the Army consisted of about 300,000 ineptly equipped and ill-trained regulars...
...It was as much a nightmare in Civil War times as it was during World War II, in Vietnam, and today in blood-soaked Iraq...
...Copies Distributed: 50,500 Percent Paid and/or Requested Circulation: 99.4 percent Statement of Ownership will be Published: November 2003 Alfred S. Regnery,Publisher 9-12-03 NOVEMBER 2003 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 61...
...And as such, The Boys' Crusade is a discredit to the memory of our young soldiers who fought in World War II...
...could not win the war, nor could a naval blockade nor other techniques less nasty than personal soldiery encounters on the ground...
...infantry and wounded almost 500...
...Fifty-three years later this insane system that also killed thousands of soldiers in both Korea and Vietnam is once again wasting our kids in Iraq...
...Copies of Single Issue Published Nearest to Filing Date: 46,300 Total No...
...In Vietnam, living and dying among young grunts was commonly summed up as, "It don't mean nothing...
...But he covers several universal truths that today's generals and admirals should reexamine: • "Nobody gets out of a rifle company...
...Although the (individual) replacement system made good bureaucratic sense and promoted efficient management, it is hard to imagine a system more detrimental to the individual soldier's discipline, morale and training...
...Copies Each Issue During Preceding 12 Months: 50,000 No...
...A lesson relearned the hard way by Rummy's "shock and awe" in Iraq...
...I too know about boy soldiers and the unthinkable waste of war...
...Even though that's pretty much what Fussell does for 165 eloquent, brilliantly written, often-sardonic pages...
...The fact is The Boys' Crusade is a pacifist tract—in spades—and as far as I'm concerned serves no useful purpose other than providing a platform for a bitter old man to take pot shots at our heroes, in this case the brave citizen soldier-boys from "the greatest generation...
...You leave when they carry you out, if you're unlucky, dead, or if you're lucky, wounded...
...the most powerful account of the ground war in Western Europe I have yet to encounter," none of these mainly academic reviewers has experienced war from a foxhole and that sacred bond of brotherhood...
...And since most boy soldiers haven't been exposed to the good life, they haven't a clue about what they'll be missing out on if they're zipped into a body bag...
...Fussell, who became an academic after the war, is more at home with the sneering condescension of academe than with that blood-brotherhood...
...It's a major wonder that the U.S...
...air power alone...
...That was the unwritten law...
...It's a fact that fills Fussell with a grievance...
...But for all its virtues of easy readability and occasional insight I found The Boys' Crusade too simplistic in hard military substance, a Reader's Digest version of military operations in Europe during World War II...
...We'd have passively waited for our turn on BOOKS IN REVIEW the trains and been exterminated in the concentration camps along with so many millions of others...
...Army Fussell describes as dispirited, badly led, and poorly trained losers managed to win the most critical campaign in our country's history...
...It's a door that only opens one way, in...
...Reading the book reminded me of being stuck in a recording studio in Santa Monica in the 1980s for three very long difficult days when I was taping sections of About Face for an audio release...
...While I took breaks from hours of talking into a mike, the editors used the downtime to edit Ron Kovic's Born on the Fourth ofJuly...
...STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT AND CIRCULATION Publication Title: The American Spectator Publication Number: 0148-8414 Filing Date: 9-12-03 Issue Frequency: Ten per year Number of Issues Published Annually:10 Annual Subscription Price: $49 Complete Mailing Address of Known Office of Publication: 1611 N. Kent St., #901, Arlington VA 22209 Complete Mailing Address Headquarters or General Business Office of Publisher: The American Alternative Foundation Inc., 1611 N. Kent St., #901, Arlington VA 22209 Publisher: Alfred S. Regnery, 1611 N. Kent St., #901, Arlington VA 22209 Editor: R. Emmett Tyrrell, 1611 N. Kent St., #901, Arlington VA 22209 Known Bondholders, Mortgages, and Other Security Holders Owning or Holding 1 Percent or More of Total Amount of Bonds, Mortgages, or Other Securities: None The Purpose, Function and Nonprofit Status of this Organization and the Exempt Status for Federal Income Tax Purposes: Has Not Changed During Preceding 12 Months Issue Date for Circulation Data Provided: July/August 2003 Average No...
...My problem with Fussell's antiwar tract is that if we all were to follow his thinking, no one in 1941 would have stood up to Adolf Hitler and his jack-booted vermin...
...Anyone older—unless inculcated with iron discipline by demanding sergeants—would have the sense to desert, or as Fussell documents so well, blow off a toe to escape the trenches...
...War is always an abomination, a grotesque, ugly, inefficient undertaking that will unfortunately remain a given until humankind stops jumping to the usually unnecessary military solution Colonel David H. Hackworth is the author most recently of the bestselling Steel My Soldiers' Hearts...
...These phonies were granted officer rank and beautiful dress uniforms without having to undergo the usual price of painful infantry training...
...Generals always want boys as their cannon fodder...
...His web-site is www.hackworth.com...
...The author himself says his book is not intended "as a pacifist text, but the appalling truth may be let out occasionally...
...Most teenagers haven't worked out the consequences of the dangers they'll be facing on a killing field: what a machine-gun burst will do to the chest or how a mortar round will turn them into purple mush...
...It's called the brotherhood, and membership is seared into the soul...
...Crying about war won't make it go away...
...Friendly fire, with a vengeance...
...A few examples: • American "B-17 strategic bombers, usually used to destroy cities and the people within them...
...Almost all my rifle platoon warriors were boys and it stayed that way through my two years in the Korean War and almost five during the Vietnam War—where the average age of our combat dead was just short of 20 years old...
...Over and over again I had to listen to "Why me...
...the combat infantryman broods with deep and bitter resentment over the enormous number of people in the rear who sleep safely at night...
...And more specifically about how a relatively small group of America's best and brightest boys—dragooned into the ranks when infantry units ran out of ordinary replacements—were forced to do nasty things by mainly unqualified officers...
...Unless military planning and training is almost as brutal and cynical as battle itself in attending to the nature of man, unless replacement troops are training rigorously and prepared psychologically, disaster is likely to occur...
...Since before Cain and Abel, boys have done the killing and the dying up at the front where the elephant charges...
...But nobody just walks away...
...Of course Sherman got it right when he said, "War is Hell...
...1,800 B -17s and 550 fighter-bombers, assisted by fire from 1,000 artillery pieces, killed 111 U.S...
...His whining about the injustice of war makes for bad history and bad judgment...
...I saw my first American soldier killed in action in Italy in 1946 at age 15...
...Author Paul Fussell laments from page one to the end of this beautifully written but cynical work about the horror, stupidity, and futility of war...
...But the fact that young men die and that iron discipline is necessary to make older men fight is just that: a fact...
...Fussell correctly explains that battle is not a romantic game played out on a sunny hill where at the end of the day the participants lay down their swords and rush off to the nearest pub for a beer...
...David H. Hackworth T HE BOYS' CRUSADE is a book that could more aptly be called Cry Me a River...
...But what he misses completely is that out of the horror and the sacrifices, the deepest possible love and respect develop among those who stand together...
...Although other reviews have lavished praise on this work such as...
...I was only eighteen" screeching out of the studio speakers like a broken record from Hell...
...by the time I was 20 I had 157 notches on my trusty M-I rifle and decided to quit counting coup...
...In 1945, it was a force of more than 8-million mass-produced citizen soldiers...
Vol. 36 • November 2003 • No. 6
