Counterattack (The Corps Series Book 3)

Counterattack (The Corps Series Book 3) by W.E.B. Griffin

Another W.E.B. Griffin book that’s part of yet another series.  These books are kind of strange in that I find them quite enjoyable, yet when I describe the books to someone, I’m a bit mystified by my appeal.  I guess you really have to read them to “get it”.  So give credit to the author.  This series (like the first one I read by him, “The Brotherhood of War”) is about the military.  Specifically, this book, the third in the series titled “The Corps”, takes place in World War II. It starts directly after Pearl Harbor and finishes with the landing at Guadalcanal.

Like most of his military books, there really isn’t that much “war” within the pages.  The book mainly deals with many of the soldiers (in the Marine Corps; of course) and their training, their assignments, and the overall politics of military life.  The characters mostly repeat from book to book in the series, yet as I recall, the events and timeline in this book run parallel to Book 2.  So some similar characters, but a lot of new ones.  There’s almost TOO many new ones. 

Fortunately, every time the author introduces a new character, he spends an adequate amount of page space detailing the person and their background. This allows us not to lose the individual in the “shuffle” since after we meet them for a chapter, we might not read about them again until 100 pages later or so.  

Again, there’s a LOT of actors in this particular play.  Then, of course, every time we’re reintroduced to a recurring character from a previous book in the series, we read a lengthy background about them as well.  Even though we “should” be familiar already with these characters, Griffin is smart enough to know most readers probably won’t retain the characters and their histories over such a large period of time. 

We read an awful lot about politics within the ranks, and this really shouldn’t surprise us.  Not all soldiers are warm, cordial, and loving to each other and there’s plenty of jealousy and backstabbing amongst the members of the corps. It seems the higher one goes up the chain in terms of military rank, the more tension and resentment occurs.  

Of course, then we come to the women in the story.  Now, I’m not sure if this author would be considered sexist or liberating when discussing his female characters.  The only reason that there are ANY women in this book, is so she can quickly shack up with one of marine corps members quicker than you can say Semper Fi.  Maybe I’m naïve, but were all women that slutty in the 1940s?  I would hope not. I mean Every. Single. Time a woman enters our story she’s quickly in bed with one of the soldiers.  Of course, there’s always women who enter our story who are already engaged or married to a soldier fighting in the war sometime, but the author always manages to kill off the boyfriend/husband in battle so our female characters can quickly hook up with a soldier.  It seems awfully silly at times. The only thing more ubiquitous than the sex in these stories is the booze.  It seems every officer, in every situation is never far away from a liquor cabinet stocked with cases of Scotch.  Again, maybe this was par for the course during the times.

I think the only thing that I really didn’t like about this book is that we have one marine captain who reports directly to (real) Secretary of Navy Frank Knox.  When our captain sends the Secretary confidential “eyes only” documents, Griffin decides to include the whole correspondence within the secret files; meticulously detailed in a different font than the rest of the book so it “stands” out as being different.  This isn’t bad by itself, but the correspondence that our character sends seems awfully detailed with useless trivial details about matters mostly inconsequential.  Don’t cabinet members have more important things to do with their time than read such insignificant ramblings?  I mean, if I’m bored as a reader, I can only imagine how the Secretary of the Navy felt.

So not a lot of war, but a pretty decent story with a lot of “how it really works” as far as military matters go.  These books are quite light reading even if they’re not necessarily brief.  It’s best, though, to start at the beginning if you’re going to read any of the books in the series.  Not crucial, but best.