The Last Parallel:
A Marine War Journal – Martin Russ
I picked up The
Last Parallel, expecting gory tales of bloodshed and destruction, with the
primary literary influence being Mickey Spillane. My narrow-minded prejudices
were shaken when the author said that he was scandalized that a fellow Marine
from Asheville, NC didn’t know who Thomas Wolfe was.
In fact, The Last
Parallel is a smart and often funny diary-based account of his training in
Camp Pendleton, transport to Korea, and his time in the static war from
December 1952 to September 1953. Film director Stanley Kubrick was so impressed
with this story that he took out an option to make it into a movie.
Sailors and Marines are forbidden to keep diaries, so
it’s a minor miracle that a book like this one even exist. When asked what he
was writing, Russ would say, “Letters.” I assumed he later edited the entries
for publication but the writing is understandably uneven. Some parts are
humorous and exciting, while others go on and on.
There’s much to interest readers who are into things
military: gear, weapons, landscape, patrols and skirmishes. Many of the
fighting scenes will carry the reader away such as in Cross of Iron and With the
Old Breed. He describes an ambush:
A tremendous volume of fire,
coming from our right front, at a distance varying from twenty to fifty yards.
These were the first muzzle blasts I noticed. … Fire of equal intensity came
from our left but at a greater distance. The ambush had been deployed in an
inverted V formation and the fire from its apex was obviously the most deadly.
For those not so into dispositions
tactiques, there are excellent passages too. This on Chinese propaganda
efforts.
… “Ike is one of the leaders who
could bring peace in Korea, but like the rest of the big-money boys, he is not
interested in peace.”
A woman sang a song, a very
sentimental piece but quite moving “The Last Rose of Summer.” I looked back at
the other three men and could see the outline of their brush-covered helmets.
They were listening too, not aware of each other and maybe for a moment unaware
of the surroundings. When the song ended, a woman said, “Did you enjoy my song,
Marine? If so fire your rifle twice and I will sing another.” A wag on the MLR
fired an extremely long burst from a machine gun. It echoed for several
seconds. A few miles to the east, in the Army sector, five or six parachute
flares hovered above the mountains. Artillery rumbled in the distance, a kind
of muffled thunder. The woman sang another song. It was unfamiliar, a semi-art
song. This was followed by a haunting, 1920-type number played by an American
dance band of that period. I listened hard for the sound of Bix Beiderbecke or
at least Henry Busse. It may have been Whiteman.
I had an imaginary picture of
the Chinese nearby, listening to the record, thinking how well it must typify
the atmosphere of money-mad capitalist, warmonger infested modern America. Poor
bastards realty do need a new propaganda system.
Sure, we wonder what a “semi-art song” might possibly be
but quibbles don’t spoil the comic relief guys enjoyed in a grim situation.
Theodore Roosevelt – called by Henry James “a dangerous
and ominous jingo” -- once maintained that only under wartime conditions is the
character of man ever fundamentally tested. Suffice to say, this book is an
example of how often the war experience may drastically alter a soldier’s
entire approach to life. Russ narrates his growth from misfit-goof-college
smarty-pants to novice to seasoned professional.
In his last month in Korea, he was promoted to sergeant,
as he had been doing a sergeant’s duties for months as an acting squad leader.
Post-Marines, he wrote several popular histories of the Marines in combat, the
best known of which was Breakout : The
Chosin Reservoir Campaign, Korea 1950.
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