| Call of Duty - My Life Before, During and After the Band of Brothers (2008) |
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| Notes/Review |
| This is more of a 2.5 star book, but I'm rounding down for the last chapter. Buck Compton led quite a life. We first learned about Compton through Band of Brothers. This book is his whole life - youth, sports, marriage; ROTC, OCS, combat, reserves; his work in the LA police department, LA District Attorney's office, and his judgeship. One of the major highlights was his prosecution of Sirhan Sirhan for assassinating RFK. His life is the stuff of movies. When reading the dialog, I couldn't help but read it in voices I recall from movies of the era. Made it seem kind of goofy, but I couldn't help. Obviously, I don't expect him to remember exactly what people said all those decades ago, but it comes across sort of stereotypical. I assume most people are interested in this book because of his war exploits. If you've already read Band of Brothers and are looking for more, it's not here. He tells his part of the story in a cursory manner, pointing out places where his recollection is different than the HBO series. As I said, he led quite the interesting life. But throughout the book he made references to his politics that I was going to skip for this review. Skip, that is, until I got to the last chapter where he unloads with both barrels. Frankly, I find his political and moral thinking repellant. My first clue as to his extreme political position was the complete lack of mention of the death of FDR. It's rare when personal narratives of the time make no mention of the event. Later, one of his police colleagues hates FDR so much that when the Roosevelt dime came out, he'd drop them on the floor and step on them. As a police officer, he kicked in a little old lady's door when given an incorrect address by an informant. He gave her money for the door out of his own pocket, so everything is okay. As a prosecutor he tried the case of an armed robber who tied a man up and dragged him to a back room before kicking his teeth in. Because he moved the man, it counts as kidnapping too and Compton went after the death penalty. As a judge, he overturned a rape conviction. The victim hitchhiked and was picked up by a man who expressed interest in her. Her co-worker had been raped and killed in the area, and when the man made advances she was too scared to say anything. Compton's position is that because she didn't say "No" it wasn't rape. In his final rant (the chapter is actually called "Last Rants and Reflections"), he goes on about freedom versus socialism. He opines that socialism, communism, and terrorism are all just different names for the same thing - collectivism. We, in America, have capitalist freedoms and collectivism is an existential threat. He clearly has no idea who he fought (so bravely) against. He doesn't seem to realize the concentration camp slaves were working for some of the largest capitalists in Europe: Krupp, IG Farben, Bayer. He's an uber-patriot freedom lover who has no trouble kicking down the doors of innocents, calling for the death penalty for a property crime, and thinks a woman gives implied consent to sex: it's only rape if she says "No"; saying nothing is a "Yes". He says the best way to make sure we have freedom is through compulsory military service. I'm thankful that he fought the Nazis, but clearly he was fighting for a different kind of freedom than I'm looking for. Damn, I really went off on him. All because of that last chapter. |