USMC

Bound in camouflage cloth and thick enough to stop an anti-tank shell, this exhaustive chronology of the Marine Corps' 227-year existence will appeal to veterans and regimental historians alike. The detailed entries cover desultory peacetime action, administrative minutiae and desperate battles in the same terse military jargon: on January 28, 1922, for example, ""Marines assist in rescue work after the roof of a theater collapses in Washington,"" while the entry for March 1, 1944, at the height of the Iwo Jima battle (""Marine aircraft participate in TF 58 strikes on Okinawa""), includes the laconic note that ""VMSB 332 is redesignated VMTB 332."" The march of dates and acronyms is interrupted by engaging two-page vignettes that feature loving descriptions of rifles and machine guns, tales of heroism and profiles of prominent Marines, including the ""irrepressible"" Major General Smedley Butler, who later soured on the Corps and denounced expeditions he had led in the Caribbean as an imperialist ""racket."" Innumerable photos and reproductions of paintings by Marine artists provide sometimes gritty, sometimes sentimental glimpses of Marine life and combat. Scholars will find the chronology of real value, while the trove of Marine lore will spark reminiscences among leathernecks.