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Rating: 
Summary: A dishonest book
Review: Gray wrote a "moral equivalence" book long before the term entered our discourse: a totally dishonest attempt to glorify the German killing machine of World War II and bring the Allied efforts to defeat it down to the Nazi level. The recent exhibition on the crimes of the Wehrmacht against Jews and East Europeans make a mockery of his convoluted piece of propaganda disguised as "philosophical" reflection.
Rating: 
Summary: review of The Warriors
Review: Gray's book gives us a chance for a better understanding of what men face in the battle with themselves while in war. A very different view as oppposed to movies and text book history, where all the American soldiers were hero's with little or no fear. Gray does an outstanding job of making someone who has never been in the hell of war, understand why soldiers act the ways they do. An excellent read for any war student or historian.
Rating:
Summary: It is good that war is so terrible...
Review: I have never experienced combat or even war for that matter, but it has always consumed my thoughts. (this would be the single point of contention between me and the author who believes no one gives thought to these matters.) To me, war constitutes all of man's extreme qualities and concentrates them into a single moment. Cruelty and Love, Fear and Courage, can coexist in the same moment and in the same person. If we want to really understand what it is that makes us human, I think we need to understand men in combat, or at least reflect on it and try. This observation is the first part of Gray's 'thesis'.
WWII interests me NOT because of the American involvement in what is hailed as "The GOOD War". I think that is mindnumbing nationalistic propaganda. MY interest in WWII stems from the fact that more civilians died in that war than did combatants. (Another point of the author) What is happening to our world's society? When did the line between combatant and innocent civilian disappear? Why? This is the second part of Gray's 'thesis'.
This book, written by a philosophy PhD (awarded his doctorate with the same mail that brought him his "greetings from the president" letter--his 'draft'), and a soldier who spent 4 years in the war, is an attempt to answer these questions as best he can. It was written in the last years of the Vietnam conflict. This is what prompted him to reflect on his own war experience and the quesitons philosophical, ethical, and moral which had haunted him. He does NOT make any claims that one war is better or different than the next. It is NOT a book about the glory of WWII and the vulgarity of Vietnam, like one might assume.
Gray witnessed the material and human destruction of war from all angles. Having been involved for so long in this otherworldly event transformed him. It disrupted the continutity of his life. While in the war, his past life was meaningless, and then when away from the war, his war years became faded and irrelevant. This was his greatest fear and the ultimate impetus for his writing. This is an important work.
He ends the book with Lee's quote..."It is good that war is so terrible, else we should grow to fond of it." [I paraphrased]
Rating:
Summary: It is good that war is so terrible...
Review: I have never experienced combat or even war for that matter, but it has always consumed my thoughts. (this would be the single point of contention between me and the author who believes no one gives thought to these matters.) To me, war constitutes all of man's extreme qualities and concentrates them into a single moment. Cruelty and Love, Fear and Courage, can coexist in the same moment and in the same person. If we want to really understand what it is that makes us human, I think we need to understand men in combat, or at least reflect on it and try. This observation is the first part of Gray's 'thesis'.
WWII interests me NOT because of the American involvement in what is hailed as "The GOOD War". I think that is mindnumbing nationalistic propaganda. MY interest in WWII stems from the fact that more civilians died in that war than did combatants. (Another point of the author) What is happening to our world's society? When did the line between combatant and innocent civilian disappear? Why? This is the second part of Gray's 'thesis'.
This book, written by a philosophy PhD (awarded his doctorate with the same mail that brought him his "greetings from the president" letter--his 'draft'), and a soldier who spent 4 years in the war, is an attempt to answer these questions as best he can. It was written in the last years of the Vietnam conflict. This is what prompted him to reflect on his own war experience and the quesitons philosophical, ethical, and moral which had haunted him. He does NOT make any claims that one war is better or different than the next. It is NOT a book about the glory of WWII and the vulgarity of Vietnam, like one might assume.
Gray witnessed the material and human destruction of war from all angles. Having been involved for so long in this otherworldly event transformed him. It disrupted the continutity of his life. While in the war, his past life was meaningless, and then when away from the war, his war years became faded and irrelevant. This was his greatest fear and the ultimate impetus for his writing. This is an important work.
He ends the book with Lee's quote..."It is good that war is so terrible, else we should grow to fond of it." [I paraphrased]
Rating:
Summary: One of the Best Books On War
Review: I haven't read this book for twenty years but it still sparkles in my memory. It is one of the two or three best books on war. Grey has a marvelous writing style, a penchant for thought-provoking observation, and the discipline that allows a philosopher to see, but not pre-judge. You will be challenged by his fairness, surprised by the things he saw (that few others have described), and stimulated to think again about one of the most important of recurring human events: War. Excellent, engaging, intelligent.
Rating:
Summary: the worst "war book" I have ever read
Review: This was a typical example of a very poor book written by a pseudo-intellectual who spent little if ANY time in real combate.
Oh how I wished he had spent at least two days and nights on patrol behind enemey lines with my squad in Korea. As far as I can tell, Gray doesn't have any idea what real hand to hand combate is all about. He has NO right to judge the actions of real soldiers in combate or what they are thinking or feeling.
My recomendation is to please do not buy this "book".Thank you.
SFC Case
Rating:
Summary: review of The Warriors
Review: To begin praises of this book is hard, because as a man who has never been in combat, I hesitate to speak on matters so foreign to my experience. But J. Glenn Gary leaves me stunned and humbled. The amount of pure excellent reflection in this book was utterly wonderful, and I left with a real sense of understanding nothing else has accomplished. It is clear Gary has created a book that is more complete a discussion of battle as any man alive. Rarely is a book worthy of cult status. This one is.
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