Thomas F. (hardtack) -
When I was in the service I saw so many people receive awards for kissing butt, I began to doubt the value of them. Still, many of our heroes greatly deserve them. Most Medal of Honor awardees (they don't like to be referred to as "winning the Medal of Honor," as there is no contest to getting that or other awards for valor) often accept it to honor the courage of other men they served with and who often died without receiving anything other than the Purple Heart.
Fortunately, our country in recent decades has looked back and honored or upgraded the honors for men and women overlooked from past conflicts. Sometimes, those "overlooked" were for reasons not always representative of the "equality" we like to think our country represents.
This is an easy book to read and I was surprised how quickly I finished it. Eddie Carter's daughter-in-law should be rightfully proud of her work to "right the wrongs" her husband's father endured.
I'm not surprised she fingers FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and General Mark Clark as responsible---in part---for Eddie Carter's problems. These were not the great figures our country once through they were. In fact, if you do enough reading, you realize these two men were "part of the problem." One charge against Clark---not often mentioned---is when he commanded the American Army in Italy, he had the opportunity to cut off and destroy a German Army---thereby greatly shortening the war--- but decided to take another road so he could claim to be the Liberator of Rome. As a result, many more American and Allied soldiers and civilians died to satisfy his ego. Why he wasn't replaced is a wonder to me. But he did pay for it, as two days after "liberating Rome," he was "missing in action" in the headlines when Allied forces invaded France on June 6, 1944, and got all the press attention. Serves the SOB right. In support of my statement, see Clark's Wikipedia page.
Fortunately, our country in recent decades has looked back and honored or upgraded the honors for men and women overlooked from past conflicts. Sometimes, those "overlooked" were for reasons not always representative of the "equality" we like to think our country represents.
This is an easy book to read and I was surprised how quickly I finished it. Eddie Carter's daughter-in-law should be rightfully proud of her work to "right the wrongs" her husband's father endured.
I'm not surprised she fingers FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and General Mark Clark as responsible---in part---for Eddie Carter's problems. These were not the great figures our country once through they were. In fact, if you do enough reading, you realize these two men were "part of the problem." One charge against Clark---not often mentioned---is when he commanded the American Army in Italy, he had the opportunity to cut off and destroy a German Army---thereby greatly shortening the war--- but decided to take another road so he could claim to be the Liberator of Rome. As a result, many more American and Allied soldiers and civilians died to satisfy his ego. Why he wasn't replaced is a wonder to me. But he did pay for it, as two days after "liberating Rome," he was "missing in action" in the headlines when Allied forces invaded France on June 6, 1944, and got all the press attention. Serves the SOB right. In support of my statement, see Clark's Wikipedia page.
