Joel Engel: Take Back the Word / Duty Bound

In this April 12, 2005, article for The Daily Standard (www.weeklystandard.com), author and journalist Joel Engel takes a sharp look at how the term "liberal" has been hijacked by people who are behaving in ways that are decidedly not "liberal" in the sense that the word held until recently.

IN EDWARD ALBEE'S PLAY The American Dream, Mommy proudly delights in her new beige hat until the moment someone refers to it as wheat colored, at which point she hurries back to the store in a fit of pique. Albee, of course, was being ironical, ridiculing his character's weak-mindedness before an audience who would surely agree that roses smell good no matter what they're named, and that insisting the sky is green can't really change what the eye sees.

So what are we to make of the word "liberal," whose current meaning is likely beyond the ken of both Albee and Shakespeare?...

He gives a long, pointed list of examples of what so-called liberals are doing these days which run counter to the liberal tradition, even to a point of Orwellian inversion, as he puts it.

On a related side note, if you'll visit the Acton Institute (use links list), they have an archives section called "In the Liberal Tradition" which bears this out. For that matter, if you study history at all, it's seems a safe bet that what passes for liberalism these days would have been fought head on by the dedicated liberals of yesterday.

Joel Engel recently co-authored the book Duty Bound: Survival and Redemption in a Time of War, the story of Ezell Ware. Ware is the primary author. From the publisher (via barnesandnoble.com):

"Raised in the segregated South, Ezell Ware was determined to excel beyond the lines drawn by white power brokers. He became the top recruit in his Marine training class; having grown up without running water, electricity, or sufficient food, he wasn't daunted by military life. He eventually earned a chance to join the Army's helicopter pilot program, realizing his dream of flying. It was a role that would change his life, and the life of an unlikely partner in valor at the height of the Vietnam War." Downed by enemy fire while on a mission over thick jungles, Ware and his badly injured captain endured a three-week descent into hell, with one canteen and little defense against countless deadly forces. But when his captain revealed his membership in the Ku Klux Klan, their situation took a turn that surprised them both - and put Ezell on the road to becoming a general.

I've just done a quick tour around the Internet, and at this point the professional reviewers (Publisher's Weekly, Kirkus Reviews) are sneering at this book, but most customer reviews are proclaiming it inspiring. The panning in the 'official' reviews is not altogether surprising, since many professional critics appear to think it is their job to find fault instead of review (did I say that?). But one of the main problems appears to be that the 'pros' are quite obviously choking over Brig. Gen. Ezell Ware's assessment that it was right to go into Vietnam, and that certain aspects of the war went better than portrayed in press reports.

This book sounds a little too rough and gory for me, but I'd like to know whether to recommend it to some of our regular customers who generally go for military, history, or political reads. If you've read it, I'd appreciate a note in the comments section. Thanks.


By Duty Bound: Survival & Redemption in a Time of War