Ship’s Library

By DAVID W. MUNNS
Assistant Editor

FAITH IN OUR SONS: A Father’s Wartime Diary
by Frank Schaeffer, New York, N.Y.: Avalon Publishing Group, May 2004. 288 pp. $25.00
ISBN: 0-7867-1322-4

Marine Corps Gen. James L. Jones, NATO chief, wrote to Frank Schaeffer explaining the unfortunate truth that “there has been a ‘disconnect’ between the men and women who defend our nation and those who are the beneficiaries of that service.” This gap in American ideology is exactly what Schaeffer seeks to bridge in his own life after his son, John, volunteers for an unlikely deployment in support of the war on terrorism. With his son’s service in the Marine Corps, Schaeffer admits he has “undeservedly stumbled into the America that gives back more than it takes.”

Faith in Our Sons: A Father’s Wartime Diary is the journal of Schaeffer’s voyage as he grapples with the whirlwind of emotions that a parent experiences during the temporary loss of a child. The book is much more than a diary of his experiences — it’s a pastiche of the millions of lives affected by military service and the analytical, often philosophical, discussions Schaeffer shares with colleagues, fans, his family and even himself about his newfound identity as a reluctant, but proud, military father.

Schaeffer’s initial reaction to John’s involvement in the Marines is thoroughly developed in his first book on the subject, co-authored with his son, Keeping Faith: A Father-Son Story About Love and the United States Marine Corps. This new book serves as an excellent supplement to that story and adds perspective to the struggle a parent experiences when a child leaves for war.

Upon learning of his son’s deployment to the Middle East, Schaeffer writes, “We want to figure out what the hell we’ve done (or not done) to produce this strapping Marine, to get ourselves into this nightmare, one where pride and fear mix in equal blood-pressure-popping proportions.” His wife reiterates Schaeffer’s concern and notes, “It was time for me to study and learn some hard lessons that I’d been avoiding. For one thing, I needed to learn about patriotism.” There is evidence throughout the book, through the sentiments of Schaeffer and the dozens of e-mails he shares with readers, that he is embittered by the fact that, “These days our nation’s elite and our political leaders who send our sons and daughters to war do not send their own children.”

Schaeffer’s own clash with the extent of his patriotism, and the methods and means surrounding America’s war on terrorism, are most clearly annunciated with correspondence between him and Frank Gruber, “an entertainment lawyer and local columnist living in Santa Monica, Calif.,” a place, according to Schaeffer, “that probably produces fewer Marines per square mile than any other place in America.” Although Gruber is described as “an optimist who believes in progress and the goodness of just about everybody but Republicans,” Schaeffer notes that Gruber’s “concern and friendship helped [him] get through many a tough day as John went to war.”

Schaeffer watches the news each night when his son is first deployed and begins many of his entries with headlines that might have appeared on the given date. The headline for his April 9, 2003, entry reads, “U.S. Forces Take Control of Baghdad.” Schaeffer, commenting on the seemingly absurd course of his life, writes, “Baghdad falls. Oprah calls. This is the strangest day of my life.” Schaeffer’s life is indeed unique, and his emotional struggle with his son’s precarious circumstances are confounded by the publicity Keeping Faith is receiving while his son is overseas fighting at an undisclosed location.

Each day, Schaeffer and his wife read the news and often end their days with uneasy stomachs and alarming wake-up calls at odd hours of the morning. When they discover their son is in Afghanistan, their unease shifts to a feeling of anger that the fight against al Qaeda is overshadowed by the politics surrounding the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Eventually, communications between Schaeffer and his son become more frequent, which causes Schaeffer to ponder his personal patriotism and the nobility of his son’s service with the Marines.

In defense of flying the flag on his home gate, Schaeffer writes in an e-mail to Gruber, “It’s a way to feel close to John while he’s a world apart. It is a way to tell every person in the military family we are proud of them. It’s not a ‘left wing’ or ‘right wing’ symbol … it’s our family saying, ‘We love you’ to John and all our sons and daughters who wear the uniform.”

Schaeffer comments on the anti-war movement and his own struggle with the moral justifications for war with Iraq, but ultimately he questions Gruber about the use of the words “moral” and “immoral” when discussing America’s involvement with the war. He demands, “Where do these concepts come from in your naturalistic and secularized view of the world? … Does morality come from a majority vote? When Hitler got the backing of 13 million voters, did this make his actions more ‘moral’ than if he had not had a majority vote?”

Schaeffer vehemently argues throughout this memoir that his son’s involvement in the war had nothing to do with the political ramifications or the moral considerations that the nation as a whole evaluates. His son’s words in a letter toward the end of his nearly year-long stint in Afghanistan cogently iterate Schaeffer’s own sentiments. John writes, “I have learned that the right thing and the necessary thing are not synonymous, rarely are they even in the same ballpark. It’s very depressing to see the results of some necessary actions, it’s never pure, and there is no purity here. … The truth is too ugly and vicious to comprehend with a mind that knows only comfort and whose greatest hardship has been dealing with ‘moral questions.’”

There are overlying themes in Faith in Our Sons dealing with Americanism and the current war on terrorism. But the heart of this book is the allegiance that one citizen realizes toward his country through the sacrifices made by his son, as well as the faith he rediscovers through his son’s eyes. President Ronald Reagan once noted, “Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they’ve made a difference. The Marines don’t have that problem.” Few understand this better than John Schaeffer.

COLD WAR SUBMARINES: The Design and Construction of U.S. and Soviet Submarines
by Norman Polmar and K.J. Moore, Dulles, Va.: Brassey’s, March 2004. 336 pp. $60.00
ISBN: 1-57488-594-4

The plausibility of submarines armed with ballistic missiles close to shore was perhaps the greatest impetus for the development of undersea fleets for Soviet and U.S. navies. It certainly was the catalyst for a new U.S. posture during the 45-year Cold War period. Throughout this conflict, both navies developed submarines to collect intelligence and confront and destroy enemy surface ships upon command. Ballistic-missile submarines were developed to demolish opposing homeland targets. Eventually, submarines emerged as the most potent nuclear threat for the Americans and Soviets.

Norman Polmar, who has served as a consultant to Congress, three secretaries of the Navy and two chiefs of naval operations, and has authored more than 30 books, and K.J. Moore, founder of the Cortana Corp., a high-technology applications firm concerned with submarine development, trace the history, technology and development of submarines during the Cold War and link it to key elements of the conflict in a new book, Cold War Submarines: The Design and Construction of U.S. and Soviet Submarines. The book comprises information collected through interviews and correspondence with dozens of academics, designers, engineers, and members of various institutions and agencies in Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Russia and the United States.

Although inspired by similar threats, American and Soviet submarine fleets diverged in technology and strategy during the Cold War. Polmar and Moore point to the variance in naval missions, priorities, industrial competence and management to account for the differing outcomes in submarine design. They trace the emergence of the “highly centralized, authoritarian organization” of the U.S. Navy, contrasting this to the overextended bureaucracy developing Soviet submarines.

Polmar and Moore cite that “the United States and the Soviet Union put to sea a combined total of 936 submarines, of which 401 were nuclear propelled,” during the Cold War period of 1945-91. However, the Soviet Union was far more aggressive in its development of these vessels, and “the emphasis on undersea craft continued after the 1970s, when major efforts were undertaken to construct large surface warships, including nuclear-propelled missile cruisers and aircraft carriers.”

The book is a complete history of submarines during the Cold War period and is highlighted by explanatory line drawings, tables and many previously unpublished photographs. Cold War Submarines is a compelling reference material and chronology of submarine designs as well as a look at the radically different approaches of the two competing superpowers.

Also Received:

ON THE BOTTOM: The Raising of the U.S. Navy Submarine S-51
by Cmdr. Edward Ellsberg, New York, N.Y.: Penguin Putnam, April 2004. 253 pp. $14.95
ISBN: 0-451-21151-0

On the night of Sept. 25, 1925, the U.S. Navy submarine S-51 sank after a collision with the steamship City of Rome in hundreds of feet of water near Block Island, R.I. The fervent reaction by the American public caused the Navy brass to defy skepticism and attempt to raise the thousand-ton submarine from the bottom of the sea. In On the Bottom, Edward Ellsberg offers his first-hand account of the Herculean effort to raise this mighty submarine.

SPIES FOR NIMITZ: Joint Military Intelligence in the Pacific War
by Jeffrey M. Moore, Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, March 2004. 336 pp. $29.95
ISBN: 1-59114-488-4

Spies for Nimitz is Jeffrey Moore’s profile of the first joint military intelligence agency, known as JICPOA (Joint Intelligence Center, Pacific Ocean Areas). The nearly 2,000 specialists who served under this agency provided valuable intelligence to Pacific War commanders and are even attributed to providing Adm. Chester W. Nimitz with the information he needed to claim victory in the war. The book looks at the evolution of the agency as well as its impact during World War II.

VOICES FROM THE KOREAN WAR: Personal Stories of American, Korean, and Chinese Soldiers
by Richard Peters and Xiaobing Li, Lexington, Ky.: The University Press of Kentucky, Jan. 2004. 291 pp. $35.00
ISBN: 0-8131-2293-7

Through first-hand accounts, Voices of the Korean War recounts stories of America’s “forgotten war” from previously unpublished stories from men who fought the war. It portrays the agony and endurance of all combat soldiers during that three-year struggle as well as the multidimensional reality of the conflict.