I read James Webb’s Field of Fire when it first came out in paperback sometime in the mid-1970s. It’s the kind of book that never leaves you. It is a powerful war (and political) drama that will viscerally affect any serious reader. Webb’s true importance as a novelist is being overlooked as a result of the recent sex-scene flap and I want to offer a bit of information that shows another side of his work.
Thomas E. Ricks, author of the indispensable book on Iraq, Fiasco, wrote Making the Corps back in 1997. In it, he details the Parris Island experience for new recruits but also engages in some riveting post-Vietnam era analysis regarding the Marine Corps. Quoting military journalist Arthur Hadley, Ricks noted: “ From the end of the Vietnam war until 1978 soldiers were murdering their officers and destroying their equipment, drugs were rampant, weapons and facilities were neglected and poorly maintained.” Ricks states that the “the Marines arguably were the most devastated of all the services” at that time and cites Jeffrey Record of Proceedings who declared that the early 1970s were “a debacle” for the Marines:
“The Corps registered rates of court-martial, non-judicial punishments, unauthorized absences and outright desertions unprecedented in its own history, and, in most cases, three to four times those plaguing the U.S Army. Violence and crime at recruit depots and other installations escalated; in some cases, officers ventured out only in pairs or groups and only in daylight.”
The Marines were close to being “a broken family.” Describing Webb’s books and their impact, Ricks writes that “ Webb provided the cultural manifesto needed especially by younger Marines, those with no memory of the pre-Vietnam Corps…. Webb states that he and his comrades have nothing to apologize for. It is the other side, those who avoided service, and saw service as dishonorable, that is at fault.”
Then quoting Webb directly: “Vietnam sowed the seeds of a class selfishness that still exists…. The problem of the 80’s and 90’s isn’t that corporate America abandoned the people, but that the elites have decided to pick up their pieces and protect each other at the expense of everyone else.The greatest problem in this country is the lack of a sense that we’re all sharing the problem.”
Ricks: “Fields of Fire and to a lesser degree, Webb’s three subsequent, equally fierce novels have had a quiet but pervasive effect on the Marines … to younger officers, those leading infantry platoons, companies, and batallions today, Webb is a huge and trusted figure…. Indeed, across the base at Quantico, stacks of Webbs novels are on sale at the Marine Corps Association bookstore.”
Regarding Fields of Fire, Ricks provides a few illustrations of its impact:
“That book influenced a generation of Marine lieutenants,” says Capt. John Church. “My generation, as we went through the Basic School, was told you will read Fields of Fire and you can be a sensitive leader like Robert E. Lee Hodges.”
“There are probably very few Marines who read who haven’t read Fields of Fire,” says Brig. Gen. Terry Murray, an Annapolis classmate of Webb’s who later served in the same regiment in Vietnam.
“Asked if he has read Fields of Fire, Staff Sergeant Michael Marti, the head of the Marine recruiting station in Boston, replies, “I’ve read all his books.”
I don’t think that these guys are reading Webb for the sex scenes.They are reading him because he speaks directly to officers and soldiers about valor, codes of conduct and patriotism without condescension.
Isn’t this worth a mention?
Mark P. replies:
With respect for David G., it really doesn’t matter what particular contributions, good or bad, James Webb made to the Marine Corps. If elected to office, he will be a junior senator with little to no power and, thus, limited ability to put any of his nascent pro-military values into practice.
What he will have plenty of ability to do is put Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Ted Kennedy, Charlie Rangel, John Conyers and other parade of horribles into powerful committee leadership positions that will certainly swamp any contribution James Webb could hope to make. Does it make sense to elect Webb and thus put the Intelligence and Armed Services and Judicial Committees under Democrat control according to some pie-in-the-sky hope that Webb’s values will somehow seep in? I think not.
So hold your nose and vote for George Allen, warts and all, because in the short term, there is no better choice.