If you can, find one of the Chosin Few. Let him transform a 60-year-old story into knowledge of trial, fear, endurance, and triumph that makes the Chosin Reservoir breakout one of the Corps’ proudest moments. Do it today.
But if you can’t, read Give Me Tomorrow by Patrick K. O’Donnell. Written largely from interviews with the Marines of George Company, 3d Battalion, 1st Marines (3/1), Give Me Tomorrow recounts their participation in the Inchon landings, the urban combat in Seoul, and in GEN Douglas MacArthur’s ill-fated attempt to wrest the entirety of Korea from Communist control in 1950.
O’Donnell first encountered the George Company veterans when he returned from Iraq with Lima Company, 3/1, where Lima Company had participated in the battle for Fallujah in 2004. As a combat correspondent, O’Donnell recorded his experiences with Lima Company in what would become We Were One: Shoulder to Shoulder With the Marines Who Took Fallujah (Da Capo Press, 2007). While witnessing Lima Company’s homecoming at Camp Pendleton, O’Donnell was befriended by George Company Marines, who watched the Fallujah veterans return home with the guidon carried by George Company at Chosin. In a dialogue that began at Camp Pendleton, George Company’s Marines shared their story with O’Donnell over the course of the next 5 years.
Most of my growing library of Chosin books are either first-person accounts, such as Joseph R. Owen’s Colder Than Hell (Naval Institute Press, 2000), or third-person accounts like Martin Russ’ Breakout (Penguin, 2000), which broadly samples the experiences of soldiers, Marines, and Communist Chinese forces who participated in the battles. O’Donnell’s work bridges the two extremes by telling the story of one rifle company, focusing on the company’s formation at Camp Pendleton, its combat experiences at Inchon and Seoul, and its part in the 1st MarDiv’s legendary struggle against the Chinese in November and December 1950.
By giving voice solely to the Marines of George Company, O’Donnell acquaints the reader with a relatively small number of men—some who were veterans of World War II island campaigns and others from the Marine Corps Reserves who had not been trained at recruit depots—allowing the reader to follow them vicariously as they relive their experiences from 1950. The subjective nature of Give Me Tomorrow’s primary source material is also its most exceptional strength, and through it we learn what these men most loved and feared. We know what sustained them through a modern Thermopylae, and we know what haunts them 60 years later.
Don’t be surprised if you are unable to learn about the Chosin Reservoir breakout from a veteran. Even if you meet one, he may—like an uncle of mine—gloss over the horrors, only to laud the bravery of his brother Marines. In either event, Give Me Tomorrow is a fitting tribute to these Marines and an excellent addition to your bookshelf.
May 14, 2012:
The Air Force has a storied tradition called the "Dear Boss" letter. While there may have been previous iterations, and certainly the feeling was out there before, the "Dear Boss" letter as it is known started with a letter penned by then-Captain Ron Keys in 1973 to General Wilbur Creech, Tactical Air Command commander. The below is just a snippet of the opening of his missive.
"Dear Boss, Well, I quit. I’ve finally run out of drive or devotion or rationalizations or whatever it was that kept me in the Air Force this long.
May 13, 2012:
Although the final form of the concept is still in draft form and thus unavailable to the public at large, AirSea Battle is already a juggernaut of a military concept. The planned shift in DoD focus to Pacific Command certainly demands a reassessment of naval and aerial operations, but the major impetus for the development of a Navy and Air Force concept of operations is the proliferation of Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2AD) capabilities among our possible enemies.
A2/AD may have a fancy acronym, but it is not much more than a well planned, large scale defensive position. It seems new because missiles can pack enough of a punch and are accurate enough to destroy a ship at sea.
April 27, 2012:
Over the past few months the Corps has been hit with a number of instances that can be directly traced to a lack of Leadership and continuous reinforcement of what is now called "Core Values". For those of us whom are "Long in the Tooth", we've seen these problems surface before and the way we've always dealt with them is via honest, aggressive, clear-headed and pragmatic Leadership that emphasized the implementation of the time-tested 11 USMC Leadership Principles and strict adherence to the 14 USMC Leadership Traits.
April 26, 2012:
The recent decision by the L.A. Times to publish the photographs of American soldiers posing with Talib body parts re-ignited the firestorm raised by the Marine urination photographs: is the American media anti-military and putting our troops at risk, are, were the newspapers standing up to Pentagon pressure and to be commended for demonstrating the value of a free press, or are these acts excusable due to the stress the Marines and soldiers are experiencing?
April 26, 2012:
Judging the book, “The Snake Eaters” (Free Press, May 1, 2012) by Owen West by its cover, I would never have picked it up. I would have been wrong. I would have assumed that this was another first-person “there I was” tale from Iraq. After hearing far too many contractors and retirees try to slyly slur that they “have a bit of a SOF background” in a conspiratorially lowered voice, I would have assumed that the title referred to another attempt to anoint some unit or experience as “special.”
| honoring a Marine | 4 hours 55 min ago |
| FIRST LIEUTENANT JAMES JOSEPH MIKLOVIC | 4 hours 58 min ago |
| My Drill Instructor and friend | 5 hours 20 min ago |
| Thank you for your service. I | 22 hours 7 min ago |
| Lost History | 1 day 2 hours ago |
| I servered under Col Dabney | 1 day 22 hours ago |
| Father Vincent Capodanno may you rest in God's Peace | 1 day 22 hours ago |
| nam 1968 | 2 days 3 hours ago |
A location for professional communication and informal dissemination of information within the Marine artillery community.
Debate the issues in this month's magazine.
Discuss your Marine Corps and the issues it faces.
22 May 1912: First Lieutenant Alfred A. Cunningham, the first Marine officer to be assigned to "duty in connection with aviation" by Major General Commandant William P. Biddle, reported for aviation training at the Naval Aviation Camp at Annapolis, Maryland, and Marine aviation had its official beginning.
In common with every new weapon introduced to the military service, Marine Corps aviation has travelled a rocky and uphill road. Its small size has tended to make the jolts more frequent and severe. Nothing short of the firm conviction that it would ultimately become of great service to the Corps sustained the enthusiasm of the small number of officers who have worked to make it a success. Read the full article.
 |
Look inside > |
  |
|
| 100 Years of Putting the 'A' in the MAGTF | |
Comments
Patrick K O'Donnell's Give Me Tomorrow
Review by Lt Col C G Henry USMC Ret.
Patrick O'Donnell's GIVE ME TOMORROW is the premier book about Marines of our time. O'Donnell's style surpasses Hemingway or Manchester. He reaches into the heart and soul of the men of George Company 3/1, and rips open memories long untold. He patiently takes the reader back some sixty years ago to Korea - to a war torn little country that was unknown to most of the youngsters that were sent to bring some order and freedom to thousands of Koreans. He roams through the minds of late seventy and eighty, and ninety years old men who thought they had been forgotten - these men fought in a Forgotten War, but now O'Donnell has brought them closure that they have long sought.O'Donnell is not just an author od history, but one that has seen and felt the pain of combat. He writes with a passion seldom seen, and that passion comes from his own experience in squeezing the trigger. I am the thirteenyear old Irish kid in GIVE ME TOMORROW and we of George 3/1 are honored to have O'Donnell among us. He paid his dues in combat -he is one of us. He is a MARINE... Semper Fidelis
Patrick K O'Donnell's Give Me Tomorrow
I was a machinegunner with George Company (G-3-1) in Korea. Over the years it was very disheartening to read books about the some of the battles we fought in that were flawed in their research and gave readers the wrong impression on what happened.
During the battle at the Chosin Reservoir some famous writers wrote that Task Force Drysdale, which we were the main part of, was Destroyed--Massacred--A tragedy of the first magnitude-Stopped--and was Gen. O.P. Smith's only defeat at Chosin. Yet the next day George Company took and held East Hill for five days against a Chinese regiment.
Some 60 years later Pat O'Donnell's book "Give Me Tomorrow" corrects this flawed history.
Post new comment