Marine! The life of Lt. Gen. Lewis B. (Chesty) Puller, USMA (ret.)

by Burke Davis

Paper Book, 1962

Status

Available

Call number

355/.0092/4B

Genres

Collections

Becker Collection, Paperback

Publication

Boston, Bantam [1962]

Description

The gripping story of an extraordinary American hero, the most decorated man in U.S. Marine Corps history, from a New York Times bestselling author. In the glorious chronicles of the U.S. Marine Corps, no name is more revered than that of Lt. Gen. Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller. The only fighting man to receive the Navy Cross five separate times-a military honor second only to the Congressional Medal of Honor-he was the epitome of a professional warrior. A son of the South, descendant of Robert E. Lee, and cousin to George S. Patton, Puller began his enlisted career during World War I and moved up through the ranks as he proved his battlefield mettle in Haiti and Nicaragua, with the Horse Marines in Peking, in the Pacific Theater of World War II, and in the nightmarish winter engagements of the Korean War. Fearless and seemingly indestructible, adored by the troops he championed yet forced into early retirement by a high command that resented his "lowly" beginnings and unwillingness to play politics, Puller remains one of most towering figures in American military history. Bestselling military biographer Burke Davis paints the definitive portrait of this extraordinary marine hero.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member Chris_El

A real warrior. We need more like him.

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LibraryThing member Tatoosh

Traces the career of Chesty Puller from his early life through his years in South and Central America to his service in WWII and Korea.

LibraryThing member Kurt.Rocourt

This did not live up to my expectations. I did not realize I would be reading a book about a walking, talking cartoon character. This book is truly a book of its times. It was actually published in the 1960s and it shows. In this book you have some one who loves his mom, treats his wife to flowers

weekly and is the roughest, toughest, fightenest, ruten, tuten, gun toten, he-man, fighting man the world ever did see. It comes across as silly. At one point in this book Chesty Puller is in a helicopter crash. He walks away from the crash with a piece of glass sticking out his neck. Yes, that is in this book. Someone pulls the glass out of his neck and he doesn't bleed. Seriously this is in the book. This is after he was in a battle shooting enemies with one shot each. Being shot at but not being hit once. All that just for him to beaten by politics and a medical discharge. It's just silly. I wanted to take it seriously but this book was just propaganda of its time.

I received this book via NetGalley. I thank them for this book.

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LibraryThing member DinadansFriend

"Chesty" Puller was a very good soldier. Burke Davis wrote a very readable biography and a pleasant time was created. Admittedly, the comfort was mostly of the "Glad I wasn't there" type but the combination of the career, circumstances and presentation are fortuitous. Leaving Office Candidate

school in 1918, he enlisted as a Marine rifleman , but the war ended before he saw combat. However he volunteered for service in Haiti, and spent the next 37 years in military service, and died as a Lieutenant General, after fighting in Korea.

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