Mr. Brady's "Hero of the Pacific..." sheds some well-deserved light upon a Marine hero, John Basilone, for those of us who might never heard of his actions in WWII. It was great to read about Basilone's life prior to WWII in small town America, floundering in life until he committed to military service. While reading "Hero" I couldn't help feel like I was a kid again hanging out with my grandfather at my local American Legion/VFW listening in on their tales of life prior to "The War" and their time in service. Those stories, like Basilone's prior two biographies, in hindsight were undoubtedly embellished by family and comrades in arms. People's stories of friends and loved ones who've passed tend to do this. In Basilone's case, as with countless combat vets, his heroism truly didn't need embellishment. I was happily surprised that Mr. Brady took a critical look, albeit sometimes petty, at the previous biographies and the government's desire to create super heroes and not being content with just "regular" everyday heroes like Basilone.
A few of the other reviews have accused Mr. Brady of shoddy writing in this book because of his critical tone of the two prior biographies helmed by Basilone's sister and nephew but, I found this to be a logical approach and not done with any intended spite. Gunny Basilone wasn't exactly a prolific writer, thus any Basilone biographer is heavily reliant upon the prior entries as well as other Basilone family members and acquaintances. Brady's biography wasn't flawless, but I feel that it does a good job at trying to separate the man and the myth of a long gone American hero, Manila John Basilone.

The author spends more time finding fault with and comparing other source material than telling the story of this marine hero. Rather than clarifying the author merely confuses. The story he tells could have been half as long and to the point.

I generally liked the book. My one criticism is why the author found it necessary to rebuke the stories of other authors (Basilone's family members). I think when he himself was drawing on second hand or hearsay information he should have avoided criticizing their stories. What happened to literary license?
I think the fact that Brady was a former marine he could not resist, by his criticism, the fact that he knew firsthand what the average reader or authors didn't know about the subject of military tactics. (Ex. Basilone was a machine gunner; he would not have carried or used hand grenades on Iwo).
I did not have to read the book or any other book about GY Sgt John Basilone, to see him as a hero. I kept on asking myself "why would a marine who had proven himself and awarded the nation's highest medal want to go back into battle when didn't have to?" What did he have to prove? I say it was that he truly loved his country and his fellow marines.

I purchased the Kindle version of this book after I saw the hard copy in a local bookstore. The author, a Marine veteran of Korea (I have been told emphatically that there is no such thing as a "former" Marine), knew his subject matter, and provided helpful insights into Basilone, the Marines, and America during the World War II years. I also found that fairly extensive passages of the author's work were well-written, enjoyable, and absorbimg.

Now the tough part: The book needed a good editor to pull all of the author's fine work together. There is a lot of repetition, and the author jumped around too much (he was trying to put the good stuff up front, when he could have told the story better if he had presented it as it played out). An editor would have pointed all of this out, and if so, this would have been a truly outstanding book. As it is, the book has great moments, and then goes sliding off into a confusing jumble of images and interpretations that leaves the reader--even someone who knows a fair amount about military history--somewhat confused.

I understand the author passed away a year before this book was published, and that he was a professional writer. Either (1) he didn't want his work edited (many writers don't), or (2) he wasn't around to make sure the book was edited properly. Either way, that's the main problem with this book.

James Brady's Hero of the Pacific reflects on the life and time of Gunnery Sgt John Basilone who won the Medal of Honor during the Guadalcanal Campaign in October of 1942. He was killed in action on the first day of the Iwo Jima Campaign in February 1945. At least the book got that much straight. Brady's book proves to be quite readable but sources from where he got his information appears to be less reliable. After reading this book, I still don't have a good understanding of who John Basilone really was, only what he did. From reading this book, it was truly sad that a Medal of Honor winner such as John Basilone was so poorly served by historians, may they be professionals or ranked amateurs. Even his family and friends can't get their stories straight. Toward the end of the book, on page 235, author wrote that he is "neither a scholar nor a historian". I am sure that late John Basilone and we readers who brought this book wishes he was. Maybe a real scholar and historian might have crack some light on Basilone's life, deeds, motivations and perhaps show how exactly this hero died on Iwo Jima.

On a minor downside, some of the background World War II history proves to be bit flawed or outdated. A good example is on page 20 how the author regards US Navy winning at Midway "against all odds". Anyone nowadays finally understand that Midway was a bushwhacked on the Japanese and Americans held many advantages that led to our victory. Also, I am not sure why the author insert his experiences as a Marine officer during the Korean War into this picture. Outside of being fellow Marines, the author and Basilone have no real common frame of reference. I may be in the minority on this but I found it to be distracting from the real story.

Only upside to this book is that it does give readers a chance to know John Basilone more despite of the many contradictions and mythological stories that surrounds this man. It pretty clear that James Brady did not dig too deep here. Hopefully, maybe this book and that HBO mini series might encourage someone else to look into Basilone's life and career.

A hero like Basilone deserved a lot better than this hackneyed attempt at a monograph (it's barely a biography and I won't insult historians by calling this a history). It reads more like an author's notes than an actual finished product. What's worse is it is an author who clearly has an ax to grind.
For whatever reason,(perhaps the foresight not to entrust such a story to an old magazine hack), the Basilone family made themselves mostly unavailable to the author and therefore suffers his unrelentless attacks.

The book is researched....um, well, I guess it is - I mean we have the author's notes, complete with questions and nitpicking details (wrong boots on the bronze statue - seriously?)...it's hard to say how well researched because we get everything the author read just dumped on the page without a filter or educated evaluation. 90 year old eyewitnesses are taken to task because their memories and recollections don't always jive with each other's - its this type of amateurish ridiculousness that would have led me to throwing this crap across the room, except I was reading it on my Nook (found a problem with the e-reader revolution - no frustrated throwing of books...)

At his "best", the author sounds like an old ex-Vet sitting at a Legion bar and nitpicking Hollywood's newest war movie (I'm related to one - I am well versed in how much fun that is)...at worst he sounds like a vindictive old man who should have left one less book behind.

Hero of the Pacific: The Life of Marine Legend John Basilone by James Brady

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Book Overview:
"From the summer of 1943 to early 1945, John Basilone was one of the most famous and admired people in America. As the first enlisted man to be awarded the Medal of Honor in World War II, for extraordinary bravery under fire at Guadalcanal, he toured the nation with movie stars, shared podiums with mayors and governors, shook the hands of thousands of citizens, and was even rumored to have made a romantic connection with a beautiful young actress.

Why would a man who had proven his courage beyond any doubt, who had gone above and beyond the call of duty, and was reaping the rewards of his sacrifice beg his commanding officer to break with tradition and send a Medal of Honor winner back into combat? Legendary columnist James Brady explores this and many other puzzling questions in this thrilling and surprising biography."

For those who like to know more about war stories and battle history they would enjoy this biography of John Basilone. It is a well read story on the audio book and I enjoyed Gardner's narration. While this book is a fascinating account, I did not like some of the language in it. I have an appreciation for biographies, but this one didn't grab me. However, if you are a history buff and want to more about war heroes, this could be a good book for you.

* * * * *

This review copy was provided courtesy of Oasis Audio.

This is a very good listen about one of the Marine Corps most cherished Heroes written by another Marine. Having read as much as I can about Manila John it was good to get a fresh perspective in to his life. I highly recommend this audiobook for any true Marine History Buff.

Having known Jim Brady personally I found his Hero of the Pacific probably as close to the mark as is possible for an author that did not know Basilone. I am a retired Marine "mustang" having served 16 years enlisted and the final five as an officer. Like Brady, we served in Korea (coincidentally) at the same time in 1951 and 1952. In reality, none of this is germane to the book. Brady takes nothing away from Basilone's heroism. What he does do is debunk Basilone's daughter's assumptions and those umpteen million former Marines "who saw" Basilone die on Iwo Jima. You will note the quotes about those who witnessed his death; probably the same number also saw the flagraising on Iwo a bit later in the campaign. Brady, like me, was a professional reporter. I was a combat correspondent in both Korea and Vietnam and throughout my Marine Corps career. Like Jim, I was trained to look beyond the myth and ask the pertinent questions. As a reporter, Jim did this. His book reflects this. To those of you who have not read Jim's other books, especially those where he writes "fiction to history" give it a try. He was a great writer.

cannot the legion of amazon reviewers (not only! i just read Tony Perry's review in the 10-FEB LA TIMES) make a distinction between the subject matter and the author's penmanship? the sentiment i find is if they downgrade the book...in some sense the subject (not presentation) is being slighted as well. granted, this work was published posthumously and no doubt editorially tweaked by Brady's two adult daughters. however even if Brady were alive to see its final draft, i doubt any significance changes would have been made to alter its disappointing end result. what i cannot understand is the amount of verbatim ink given to the two published BASILONE biographies (written by Basilone's older sister and nephew) within the text of his work, this after Brady pointedly discredits BOTH as either 'exaggeration', 'stretching the truth', 'padding'...or in the nephew's case 'simply made-up to fill-in the blank spots'. more specifically, Brady cites (from the nephew's book) a pre-war premonition Basilone had while caddy'ing for a group of Japanese golfers and being struck by an epiphany that one day he'll be fighting them (the Japanese). this absurd notion Brady quantitatively and quickly dismiss as a 'highly' unlikely, yet this so-called premonition is mentioned throughout his book no less than four times! WTF? if it was already disparaged as a some inventive dramatic literary device...why bother to bring it forth again? any thread of strength in the reading could only be found in Brady's relating his own experience as a combat Marine officer during the Korean War. i have read his SCARIEST PLACE IN THE WORLD, his back to Korea reflections which i found to be fair to middling and i do own his COLDEST WAR (KW memoir) which lies somewhere in my serpentine stack of 'yet-to-read' books. in a sense i can't blame Brady for fluffing his Basilone biography with extraneous and unnecessary material. the subject itself is rather thin. Basilone was a Marine hero...NOT a Marine 'personality'. Basilone died much too young (KIA'ed in his late 20's), and who is to say had he survived the war, what kind of imprint would he have made on THE CORPS? for real Marine Corps personalities, read Jon Hoffman's excellent twin bio's on Red Mike Edson (ONCE A LEGEND) and Chesty Puller (CHESTY). as for Basilone, perhaps he was a hero of his circumstances? he was the only other enlisted Marine (besides Sgt. Mitchell Paige) awarded the MOH for the Guadalcanal campaign. the others were field grade USMC officers, i.e., Gen. Vandegrift and Col. Edson. could it be that USMC command higher-ups felt that it did not appear good for morale if only field-grade officers were awarded the CMH and not also the mud-faced enlisted grunts? the CANAL was the first battle in the Pacific won by the Americans....and the American public was hungry for heroes. why not trot out some youngish good looking stud for the bond drive publicity machine instead of some worn-out stodgy field grade officers old enough to be your father? the CANAL was an early Pacific island battle when Japanese tactics still incorporated mass suicidal banzai charges...when the enemy came out exposed in the open rushing the Marine lines. an expert maestro with a belt-fed light machine gun like BASILONE would have no trouble mowing down the teeming mass of charging nipponese. it was only later in the Central Pacific campaign when the Japanese altered their battlefield tactics...they dug in tight and fought tough....forcing the Marines to employ the 'corkscrew and blowtorch' brutal method of digging them out. no wonder Basilone was able to kill so many of the enemy in so little time. to BASILONE's credit, he did his duty following orders to be paraded around like some circus oddity at the many national bond drives, turned down an officer's commission (don't call me SIR!, do you see these stripes? i work for a living!), requested and returned to the big arena where he bought the farm at some godforsaken place called IWO. undoubtedly the USMC awarded him the NAVY CROSS to assuage themselves of any guilt over his much publicized death. what constitutes a CONGRESSIONAL MEDAL OF HONOR? try reading John Plaster's SOG: SECRET WARS OF AMERICA'S COMMANDOS IN VIETNAM....about the remarkable deeds and legendary exploits of SPECIAL FORCES Col. Robert Howard.