Gyrene - The World War II United States Marine (Hardcover)

More than 50 years after his victory in the Pacific, the World War II United States Marine is vividly alive again in Gyrene. The scope and details record, analyze, and interpret the personal and cultural history of the enlisted men of America's celebrated fighting force which swept through the South and Central Pacific.

Gyrene examines the pleasant and the unpleasant, serious and not so, the ordinary and the exceptional. This citizen-soldier is presented as having human frailties but is simultaneously different and special in the eves of himself and others -- capable of, and willing against the odds, to risk his life to secure a military objective or save a comrade.

Overall, Gyrene paints a picture of who and what the Marine was and why and how he performed his duty. It tells no tales of great victories, grand strategies, famous generals, or decorated heroes. In his war, there was no London, Paris, or Rome. Both profound and entertaining, it adds a fresh new dimension to and historical perspective on the composition and quality of the Marine.

Gyrene focuses on the combat marine of the infantry regiment, but it is also about Marines who served in aviation, the engineers, amphibious tractors, artillery, tanks, and combat support in posts at home and overseas. Each was a Marine, whether he attacked pillboxes or paperwork, watched the war from a loading beach or Douglas Dauntless dive bomber. Each was called gyrene without distinction as to rank or job classification.