Good Book: Washington Goes To War, by David Brinkley

I have a weakness for history books, and Washington Goes to War, by David Brinkley, is one of my favorites: chatty, wise, warm, funny, pointed, and obviously written by a man who has been around the block a few times and no longer expects people to be perfect. He also seems to bear a grudging (if not open) admiration for people who learn to work around systems that don’t work. For instance, if I may be permitted an excerpt, from page 58 in the hardback book club edition, we have:

Captain Joseph E. Cheek, Company I’s commander, recalled that in the early thirties his infantry company on maneuvers had seen one of its pack mules stumble and fall down a hillside into a river and disappear in the current. While he regretted the loss of the mule, he was delighted to clear up his supply records by filing a report claiming that the load swept away in the river had included every piece of the company’s equipment lost or stolen since 1918. If anyone had checked the report, they would have discovered that one spindly mule was carrying three tons. Cheek would have liked to use this method again in 1941 but, regrettably, he no longer had pack mules.

This book is full of priceless vignettes like this. (I seem to remember a story about when guns set up to defend some site in Washington were being taken down after the war and the dismantlers made the shocking discovery that the ammo on hand wasn’t the right ammo for the weapon. If there had been an attack…yikes!)

Despite the title, the book does not confine itself to Washington, D.C., during the World War II years. The emphasis is there, but Brinkley was careful to provide earlier history and broader information to put his stories in context.

I haven’t seen the newer trade paperback edition, so can’t comment on how it’s laid out – but of the older editions, I’d recommend the hardback over the mass market paperback, simply because the black and white photo illustrations are too small to appreciate in the smaller format.