The Berets

The Berets (Book 5 of the Brotherhood of War Series) by W.E.B. Griffin

Let’s see.  This is the (2,3,4…) fifth installment of W.E.B. Griffin’s Brotherhood of War series. There are nine total, and for maximum effect, I recommend that they be read in order. The first installment takes place in the waning days of the second World War. By this book, we’re in the early sixties – right after The Bay of Pigs as the U.S. is sending “advisors” to Viet Nam.

Before this book, each installment had a military rank as its title (The Lieutenants, The Captains, etc.) This book takes a small detour on that path since the Green Berets were such a vital element of the American Military during the time in this book’s history.  Not that any of this should really matter. As it is, it’s very hard for me to look back at the episodes of this multi-volume story and recall who did what at what time in which book. Those types of detail are basically irrelevant. These books are designed to be a story about military people and their families.

Note that these stories don’t contain a lot of actual conflict on the battlefield. We see very little combat in these books. The author is more interested in telling stories about the soldiers and their lives – personal and professional. This is a slight disappointment, but only a slight one. The author is an excellent story teller, so the fact that these books are a tad “soap opera-ish” don’t bother me.  There’s plenty of “military” here, just not a lot on the actual battlefield.

Without keeping a tally, there are about fifteen or so recurring characters in these books, but we do meet plenty of new ones as well. The main three are Colonel’s Lowell, MacMillan, and Felter. The titles of these books reflect whatever rank these three happen to achieve in the volume. Of the many other characters, new and old, some don’t survive throughout the series. This is the military, after all.

To keep things a bit fresh, the author seems to have given his three main actors a bit smaller of a role in this book. We now focus on two younger soldiers, Tom Ellis and Geoff Craig. Ellis was introduced to us in the last installment, but has a much larger role here. Craig is the nephew of Craig Lowell. Like his uncle, he’s a bit of a spoiled brat, but has what it takes to survive in this man’s army. I wasn’t bothered in the slightest by this shift of attention.  You can only keep the same characters in the “same” books interesting for so long. As it is, I’m a bit tired of Craig Lowell’s escapades as a rich/good looking playboy.  It doesn’t take a literary genius to conclude that every time Lowell meets a woman in one of these stories, they end up having sex after a few pages. It gets too formulaic after a while.

From what I understand, the remainder of the books (or most of them) don’t progress quite as far into the future. I think (and I could be wrong) that our characters stay in the 1960s for the bulk of the remainder of their literary life. If that’s the case, I hope that we see more action in terms of combat. The few instances that we do have are quite rewarding.  There’s a brief story within these pages of a few natives of Viet Nam. As Griffin tells their story, it gives the reader a good perspective of the mindset of the Asian warrior and makes an interesting (albeit gruesome) tale within a tale.   I’d like to see more of this in later books.

Regardless, I continue to enjoy these chapters. The author also deserves kudos for carefully “reminding” his reader of his character’s backgrounds.  Unless one reads all nine of these back-to-back, time has a way of making one forget some relevant details of many of the characters.  We’re able to quickly relearn what we may have forgotten without droning on and on about the past.

These books are fairly quick as well. Each book is about 400 pages, but they seem to go much quicker. I can’t help but think that this is mainly because of the quality of the material.