A Moving and Exciting Book
Written: Mar 27 '04 (Updated Mar 27 '04)
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Pros: This is a historically accurate, non-fiction book that reads like a novel -- highly entertaining.
Cons: None. This book is now so affordable.
The Bottom Line: This is a "must-read" book. It is historically factual yet reads like a novel.
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| ejunkie1958's Full Review: Ralph Wetterhahn - The Last Battle: The Mayaguez I... |
Prior to reading this book I had neither heard about an American Cargo Ship Mayaguez nor the U.S. military action that took place on Cambodian soil. I came upon this book on pure chance and read through it from start to finish in one sitting. It was that good.
The author is Ralph Wetterhahn. He is better known as a pilot, an aviation journalist and he had appeared on Nova. He used to be a fighter pilot in Vietnam who was credited with a Mig-kill (I looked him up on the internet).
Technically this battle was considered part of the Vietnam war. But to me, it was not because it took place on May 12, 1975 almost 2 weeks after the Fall of Saigon (South Vietnam) and no Vietnamese were involved in the fighting. This set it apart from other books about the Vietnam war.
Mayaguez Incident describes the event that the Cambodian Khmer Rouge forcibly took over an American Cargo Ship , the Mayaguez, sailing in international waters just after the fall of Saigon.
President Ford, having taken over the Presidency, tried to prove his strength by deciding to send in the Marines to free the ship and crew, despite ongoing diplomatic efforts.
The White House insisted on running the show from thousand of miles away, using faulty and outdated intelligence (sounds familiar? As a matter of fact, many Ford cabinet members still serve under the current Bush administration, most notably the current Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld).
While the Cambodians were independently freeing the hostages, the Marines were sent in to attack/rescue the crew by landing on an island crawling with Cambodian crack troops nowhere near the hostages. The attack resulted in heavy loss of American lives.
The most poignant part of the story was that after the Marines pulled out, they inadvertently left 3 live marines behind and how the Ford Administration abandoned these brave soldiers despite repeated requests from the Marines to come back for them. The 3 marines were forced to fend for themselves for more than a week before being captured, tortured and savagely killed by the Cambodians.
The book detailed the Mayaguez incident, vividly described the events that unfolded from both the country leaders' perspective as well as the soldiers fighting. The last third of the book talked about the author's effort to find out what happened to these three marines and to locate their remains through his journey to the island where the fighting took place and his interviews with the Khmer Rouge leader who led the fight against the Marines.
While this is a non-fiction book, Wetterhahn had skillfully written it like a Tom Clancy novel that gave me goosebumps and I could not put it down. That's why I think it is a MUST-READ book. This book made me feel so bad for our brave marines and soldiers and disdain for the Ford Administration that was so inept.
I am surprised that it is not a best seller. This is part of the reason why I'm writing this review, in hope that it will be more widely read.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
ejunkie1958
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Member: Hank
Location: Huntington Beach, CA
Reviews written: 7
Trusted by: 0 members
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