A Christmas Far From Home: An Epic Tale of Courage and Survival During the Korean War
By: Stanley Weintraub / Narrated By: Malcolm Hillgartner
Length: 6 hrs and 54 mins
The real heroes were the troops fighting and dying—Don’t look to MacArthur for heroism…
When I was in junior high, my history teacher held up General Douglas MacArthur as THE hero of the Pacific War, citing his whole, “…and I shall return” speech, shouting it to us as a very dramatic reenactment, smiling the whole time, so I thought the General was great, right?
Well, I’ve done a whole load of military history books since then, and I gotta tell ya: I now wonder about the guy and the bit o’ megalomania that hovered around his words and actions. I could be wrong, after all, I have noooo connection to WWII and, though my dad dearly wanted to be deployed overseas, he was stuck in the States during the Korean War, so I have no connection to that war either; I’m just going by books, and we all know those can be biased. -BUT- If you’d like to keep your MacArthur-as-hero thoughts intact, ya might wanna avoid A Christmas Far From Home as author Stanley Weintraub doesn’t mince words and expresses his view that the General was a stubborn man who surrounded himself by Yes-Men, fought Truman tooth and nail from a sense of ego and of pride, made wild claims and proclamations which were not founded on fact, and who turned an especially blind eye on what could totally happen, i.e. the Chinese could throw in their support to North Korea. But, as Weintraub served in the US Army and received a Bronze Star, I’m gonna cut him some slack, although the men on the ground doing the actual living, fighting, and dying generally wonder what those in command are thinking of when they call for various assaults, various retreats, never really caring what it’s like for the soldier on the ground.
And one reviewer, who was in the battle, said Weintraub’s facts and phrasing left quite a bit to be desired. So there’s that. Make of it what you will.
Five months into the war, MacArthur grandly proclaimed an end-of-the-war by Christmas offensive, assuring one and all that his was the way to win the war, and assuring at the same time that there was little chance of Chinese intervention (Despite evidence surfacing to the contrary). And on the off chance, well, he had no doubts he’d be able to handle it. General Edward Almond’s X Corps (With a marine division under General Oliver Smith) began moving in the harshest winter weather conditions imaginable (And Almond, by the way, also comes off as a true toad, no offense to toads, keeping himself above the fighting men, having dinners in utterly opulent surroundings with liveried serving staff to wait on him, all while men were suffering the cold, frostbite, watching friends freeze and die, being stacked like so many frozen bodies of meat).
The Chinese were indeed on the ground also, lying in wait at the Yalu River and waiting to trap tens of thousands of troops.
The whole book is of men doing their best to fight and to survive, and it chronicles the many skirmishes and battles, all while Truman, MacArthur, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff struggled and made mistakes and errors of judgment. Some leaders/commanders come off as earnest whereas others didn’t know their rears from their elbows and played to the Press.
Mostly, it’s an unflinching look at what war was like for those on the ground who believed their superiors but soon came to realize their chances of getting out alive steadily grew worse with each passing minute, each action taken by a very determined and multitudinous army of Chinese. There are, however, a few stories of mercy on both sides, but there are far more instances of a lack thereof. And by the way; No man left behind wasn’t quite true given the conditions and the many, many dead. Troops brought many of their dead away with them, stacking them, strapping them to hoods, and tying them to howitzers being transported, but many were left behind to be reclaimed decades, absolute decades later.
I got this audiobook via audiobooks(dot)com, and I dunno if it was the app or the book itself, but it had a tendency of suddenly surging ahead in the text, blasting my ear drums off as the sound/narration screeeeeeched ahead. MOST unsettling, and for that I wonder if I can recommend the seller. I do hope the book is all right because I liked it; I even liked Malcolm Hillgartner’s narration, and sometimes I’ve found his rather flat delivery to stint on emotions that run high in the text but which do not come through in his performance. But here, he worked out just fine. Just that production screeeeeching that was dismaying to my ears.
This Christmas, maybe it’d be a good thing to remember what’s gone before us. I saw a gentleman in a nursing home recently, and he was wearing a Veterans of Korean War cap. I wanted to say that I now appreciated him and what he went through, but alas. His mind was gone.
If you see a veteran this Christmas season, especially from the forgotten or vilified wars, say a prayer for them. The more I read and listen, the more I appreciate what all they went through. And I’m really glad my dad didn’t get sent overseas, even though it broke his heart.
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.