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 enlarge | Author: James Brady
Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
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Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 510307
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.5 x 6.1 x 1.2
ISBN: 0312332424
Dewey Decimal Number: 915.190443
EAN: 9780312332426
ASIN: 0312332424
Publication Date: April 1, 2005
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Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Acceptable condition. May contain marks, writing, scuffs, and edge wear. Orders processed and shipped within 24 hours. Choose EXPEDITED for fast delivery.
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 6-10 of 10 | | « PREV | | |
 I loved it September 3, 2005
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Well, yes, the title is misleading. And those of you
who expect to find another novel about the Korean War
are going to be disappointed. It is not a book about
North Korea, it is a book about a man looking back at
a life well lived, remembering people who deserve to
be remembered.
 Ok book, but not the best August 21, 2005
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book was ok. Part of the problem was that the author tried too hard to make this book comparable with a WW2 book. This book was more about his own emotional experience with the Korean War and less with the actual unit experience. It glosses over the major battles of korea and focuses more on his latter day experiences with the korea war. For a more action packed novel, i would would reccomend another book.
 Err, Mr Brady -- or is it Manchester? May 6, 2005
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
Jim Brady must have fallen asleep at his word processor while re-reading "Goodbye Darkness" by William Manchester, then awakened to write his latest book. Mildly interesting in the beginning, this tale of old soldiers revisiting battle sites is predictably similar, and disappointing. After all, most of the readers probably sense that the South-North Korean DMZ environment is -- while still "scary" -- nothing like the atmosphere during the furious outpost fights of 1952-1953. Therefore it is hard to identify with Brady's professed disappointment with this trip. Salting the reported junket for a newsmag article with snippets from his own "The Coldest War" doesn't help -- one should put this new book down and read that one instead, his first Marine Corps-in-Korea tale, and far better.
Grumpy Old Men Visit the DMZ May 3, 2005
7 out of 9 found this review helpful
An extremely well-written book. However, if Seinfeld was a show "about nothing" then this book a book "about nothing."
The plot: A reluctant James Brady succumbs to the blandishments of his employer, Parade Magazine, to revisit the scene of his combat tour in the Korean War and the subject of his book, The Coldest War, and write about the experience. On this journey he is accompanied by another aging warrior, Eddie Adams, the Pulitzer Prize winning photographer (General Loan capping a captured VC in Saigon during Tet 1968). Brady hopes, apparently, to regain some of his lost youth in the experience.
Brady and Adams make the trip but Brady is disappointed at every turn. He tries repeatedly to get American officers to refer to the troops in 2ID as a "tripwire" and is miffed when they won't. The troops on the DMZ have hot food and hot showers. They live in concrete bunkers with TV and internet access. And so on and so on. The trenches and barbed wire are gone. His ROK Army host (doesn't speak English which is a disqualifier from command, apparently) tries to be polite to the traveling geezers and receives scorn for his efforts. Nothing is ever quite as hard as it was back in '52.
Brady comes across as an embittered cynic who can't resist taking gratuitous swipes at the US Army, the ROK Army, and strangely the British Army's Gloucestershire Regiment for reasons that are never really clear other than his need to be an embittered cynic.
Fortunately I checked this book out of the library so I was only out of my time.
Talk about misleading titles!! April 9, 2005
18 out of 25 found this review helpful
I am fascinated by North Korea, so when I first spotted this on amazon.com a couple of months ago, I said to myself, "Sounds like a Korean War vet went to North Korea on a tour and got to see some interesting things or maybe it's book about the DMZ. God knows that would be interesting!!"
Was I ever wrong. I think a much better title would be, "A Korean War veteran remembers being in Korea and whole bunch of other things not terribly interesting to anyone other than fellow veterans and a few historians."
I don't like being harsh, but most of this book consists of the author's memories of the 1950s and a good deal doesn't even take place in Korea. As far as the "North Korea" part goes, I didn't see any references about him actually going into the DPRK. Going to North Korea is surprisingly not all that hard, since you can apparently step across the line in Panmunjon without getting your head blown off by the KPA guards there.
In short, I'd avoid this book if you're looking for any insights about North Korea or even what it's like to serve in the Republic of Korea today. I can only hope that someone out there is writing a book about the DMZ.
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