Read for the War Challenge with a Twist 2014 at War Through the Generations
Meanwhile Back at the
Front
– Gene L.Coon
Star Trek fans will recall
that Coon’s Trek scripts such as "Arena", and "A Taste of
Armageddon" had more reflective attitudes about conflict, diplomacy, and
war than we would expect from TV even in the late 1960s.
As
a Marine, Coon fought in the Pacific Theater in WWII. After the Big One, he was
a China Marine and saw duty in occupied Japan. After WWII, he was a Marine
reservist. Like many reservists, he was recalled to the USMC during the Korean
War. He was assigned as a radio combat reporter during the Chosin Reservoir
campaign and in GEN Rideways’ advance up the center of the peninsula. He
brought all this experience to this comic novel about the marines and soldiers
in the Korean War and published it in 1961.
Like
Catch-22 though not as tragically
absurd, it is simultaneously implausible and realistic. The satire of the war
correspondents is bitingly funny. Examples of Hemingway-esque, overblown, and
cliché-ridden style of war reporting generate many laughs. The large cast of
characters provides various picaresque types, even real-life GEN Chesty Puller
appears as “Gutsy Pusher.” All the episodes are loosely connected by a rambling
plot involving a mobile bar-and-brothel in the combat zone. Predating the MASH books and TV show, the theme is
the creative and daring individual versus the by-the-book collectivism of the
military-minded.
With
the stipulation that this is very much a guy’s book, given the emphasis on
Marines and broads, this is an entertaining novel also about the uneasy place
of reservists recalled to the Marines, the restive Marines under Army command, the rivalry
of reporters with each other, and the tensions between embedded reporters and
the military. He also pokes fun at the Marine self-image, which is something
that only a Marine can do in safety, I imagine. Finally, it is worth reading if
only because there must be relatively few comic novels about the Korean War not
involving MASH uni
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