Anton Myrer
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By: Harper Paperbacks
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 106
Average rating: 4.5 of 5
A Moving Experience 5 out of 5 stars.
26 of 28 people found this review helpful.
When you sit down to read this book by Anton Myrer, you may realize that you are reading one of the most memorable books of your lifetime, even though I found the beginning almost a different, less polished writing style from the rest of the book.
Myrer introduces us to a night clerk who has a gift for leadership and a photographic memory. He joins the infantry in time to search for a Mexican raider, with little realization that he is about to be caught up in the most turbulent decades of the century where he will succeed and also fail.
Through combat, a battlefield commission and being awarded the Medal of Honor, "Sad Sam" Damon, "the night clerk," experiences the excruciating trials of war and the loss of a best friend just before war's end in 1918. Determined to learn from the lessons and losses of war, Damon prepares himself for the next one while marrying and raising a family in the peacetime army of the 20's and 30's.
Courtney Massengale is his nemesis, an ambitious and heartless West Point graduate who is a veteran of many staff assignments. His personal success is more important than the lives of men, duty, honor, or country. He is always one rank ahead of Damon who is his counterweight. Massengale's ambition depends on Damon, and Damon and his troops will depend on Massengale.
Thirty years of checking and blocking are put to the test as Major General Sam Damon finds himself subordinate to Corps Commander Lieutenant General Massengale who masks the real purpose of his operations order to his generals, except Damon sees what his true purpose is. Massengale is after one of the most singular achievements of the Pacific in World War II. Damon exacts a promise from him. A promise kept will save Damon's division, or if broken, be the cause of its annihilation.
Will he succeed?
From the pursuit of Pancho Villa to the escalation of hostilities in a small Asian country called Khotiane in the 60's, we see through Sam Damon the struggle of one man to maintain honor and loyalty, prepare his country for war, and endure the revulsion and tragedy that war brings.
I have not read before or since an author who can bring the fear, and peril of battle and make it seem so threatening and so intense. You almost expect to smell the death, and feel the heartache of personal loss and grief. This is an anti-war story; it is not one of patriotism. It is a reminder that in the heat of battle, soldiers are not fighting for a cause, a flag, their honor, or pride. They are fighting for their friends and for their lives.
Although I read this story thirty years ago, the characters and the story stay fresh in my mind. The book is still on my shelf, and I don't plan on parting with it for any reason.
The story remains a moving experience.
Editorial Review:
Once An Eagle is the story of one special man, a soldier named Sam Damon, and his adversary over a lifetime, fellow officer Courtney Massengale. Damon is a professional who puts duty, honor, and the men he commands above self interest. Massengale, however, brilliantly advances by making the right connections behind the lines and in Washington's corridors of power.
Beginning in the French countryside during the Great War, the conflict between these adversaries solidifies in the isolated garrison life marking peacetime, intensifies in the deadly Pacific jungles of World War 11, and reaches its treacherous conclusion in the last major battleground of the Cold War -- Vietnam.
A study in character and values, courage, nobility, honesty, and selflessness, here is an unforgettable story about a man who embdies the best in our nation -- and in us all.
