Valet Reader

I’ve come to the conclusion, although it really should come as no surprise, that my brother prefers non-fiction war/battle books and non-fiction tales about runners above all else. That’s not to say he won’t read everything but come on, don’t kid yourself Josh. I bring this to light in good spirit though because I have just finished what I feel is one of the best non-fiction accounts of an episode during World War II I’ve ever read. Since I’ve started the blog I’ve reviewed four other war type books he’s recommended, We Were Soldiers Once and Young, The Things They Carried, Raid on the Sun and Forever War. All of which were good (Forever War being one of my favorites of the year). But, I’d have to say that Ghost Soldiers takes the cake. (Please note: Generation Kill is on the to be read list.)

Ghost Soldiers is a story of a platoon of army rangers (the first to call themselves “rangers”) and their rescue of some 500 mostly American POW’s at a Japanese detention camp in the Philippines. This book is no-nonsense. There is no confusion as to what is going on, there is no difficult jargon that the reader needs to understand, there are no technical descriptions of battle field tactics. Instead there are two distinct point of views portrayed. One from the prisoners inside Cabanatuan, who arrived at this prison camp after the Bataan death march and the other from the rangers who went on the rescue mission to save these soldiers of their own volition.

I mean this is an incredible true story. The gory details are for the most part not left out. The struggles and hardships endured by these men was not candy coated. The abuse inflicted upon these men was described in detail as the well as the gruesome disease and infection that were plaguing them. And the heroic effort of the “rangers” and the Filipino guerrillas who put their lives on the line to save these men from what they believed to imminent death. The language employed by Sides is truly colorful and strongly felt. With words like “fate-fucked men” he obviously uses vulgarities but with taste and in a way that truly gets you to feel what he’s conveying.

Honestly, this book makes the Japanese look like ruthless murderers during World War II. Their mentality as portrayed through the POW’s eyes is startling and incredibly unsettling. They employed torture techniques such as the “water treatment,” (not the normal water torture you may be thinking of, this is much more disturbing) and also chained men to posts so they would die of dehydration in the disgusting heat. Given all this, I still couldn’t help but think of the other side of the coin while reading this. Although they were not POW’s and I don’t believe they were mistreated (I really have no idea, although this article makes me kind of queasy) the United States did of course put 120,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese in internment camps. In my opinion both were disturbing acts, but I must say the senseless and ruthless beating, starvation, torture and death that the American POW’s suffered through is as unnerving as the German Concentration camps during that same war.

I will not give away the end of the book although I imagine you can figure out how it ends. There are some nice photos in the book which add some visuals to the people and locations discussed which make the events this book covered all the more real. If you want something stark, real and easy to grasp (not so easy to swallow though due to the disturbing nature of some of the images) I highly recommend you read this book.