Five Lieutenants: The Heartbreaking Story of Five Harvard Men Who Led America to Victory in World War I
By: James Carl Nelson / Narrated By: Geoffrey Blaisdell
Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
Iffy narration and production problems can’t mar a good story
The winner of Tell Me What’s Next: Y’all chose military history… Huzzah!!!
But let me just say up front that, as you begin listening to Five Lieutenants, you’re—WHAM!—hit with the voice of a narrator who sounds like he’s a 50’s anchorman (Sorry, Mr. Blaisdell, but ‘tis so). Then we’re hit with audio production glitches where Blaisdell is talking in his urgent and odd way for one paragraph then the next paragraph sounds like he’s standing far away, speaking in an entirely different room. This goes on and on, back and forth, through the entire audiobook. I thiiiink it gets a bit better at the end, but I dunno. It could’ve been that I simply was sooo used to it by then, and there was so much action and sorrow, that I didn’t notice it.
So that’s out of the way.
The book is about five young men from Harvard “who led American to victory in World War I” but that’s not quite true. Victory for those men was elusive and hard-won. The book is written about them because, according to the author (Who also wrote The Polar Bear Expedition, reviewed previously, and The Remains of Company D, to be reviewed later) has a great deal of experience with World War I research. He points out that WWI had a different sort of man who went to war given the population of the United States at the time. There were a LOT of immigrants, newly arrived, gripped with patriotic fervor, wanting to fight for their new homeland, but such individuals weren’t exactly the best educated, could not leave a legacy of journals and diaries (Which weren’t allowed anyway). So Nelson coming upon writing from the Harvard men was a boon and a half.
Through the written legacy of each man, Nelson was able to piece together this work that chronicles the journeys of each man from the time they entered service all the way to post-war life.
There were mighty engagements with the enemy before there were full-blown offensives. And the men soon discovered the way of battle for American generals was to attack, lose men, throw more men in to continue the attack, repeat, repeat, repeat. As a listener, I could say that it made me sad when each of the men realized they were nothing more than cannon fodder.
I’m afraid I’m not even gonna TRY to tell you who the men are; if I’d purchased this as a kindle version, I’d have dashed over to get spellings, but I’ll try to serve them well by saying the story shows them to be men of honor. Even when they were struggling in roles of leadership (Wondering how the HELL to get men to listen to them), they were going for the best.
And I tell ya, the end danged near killed me. Cuz after all was said and done and they came home? Well, the war never stopped for them, and all is written with great sensitivity. Not all of them made it through the battles to come home (Bad enough), but those who did come home struggled mightily, not making it even during peace time (Even worse).
Yes, the narration is off-putting, yes, the audio production TOTALLY could’ve used someone to catch all those glitches. But the story?
The story tells it all; it never flinches, and sometimes… Well, be prepared for the occasional slug in the gut.
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