 A Review of When Wars Were Won When Wars Were Won gave me much more than I bargained for. The novel, based so closely on Aaron's own experiences, is bittersweet, rich with details that only come from living the real thing, and, in an understated way, philosophically probing. Without being self-consciously political, like Catch 22, Aaron's tale nonetheless is loaded with metaphors that ring across the five decades since the war ended, telling us more than we may care to know about ourselves. The first-person account follows Hal Arnold across the Pacific with a Seabee battalion, the civilian-like group of construction engineers, equipment operators and laborers responsible for building roads, ports, bridges and airfields through which the U.S. military would advance on its way to victory over Japan. But Arnold's account would never be confused with a John Wayne propaganda movie. He encounters stupidity, shortsightedness, screw-ups, fraud, pettiness and abuses of power on a regular basis, Arnold's on-again, off-again best friend, Barry Fortune, is a smooth operator whose charms and entrepreneurial savvy turn the war into a kind of Far East road trip. Yet Arnold is not quite seduced by what Fortune offers, and, through his naïve but clear eyes, we see the paths he must choose from; subtly, the story becomes Arnold's journey to a morality that rises above the war and the decadence many warriors wallow in. Though When Wars Were Won would be a highly satisfying read if it were no more than a war story, what I was impressed with was the way in which it gradually opened my eyes - at about the same pace as Arnold's eyes are opened - to the collective American cultural values and the long, slow decay that would follow from this pinnacle of altruism, as America truly saved the world. We are so much better than the enemy, the book implies, yet not without our own fatal flaws as a culture. When Wars Were Won is not an anti-war tome. In fact, Aaron explains, he and the others with whom he fought had no doubt that the Japanese and the German aggression was wrong and had to be stopped. And, says Aaron, a very real anger accompanied the men in their mission. But in that war, Aaron sees - and the novel reveals - the roots of atrocities Americans committed in Vietnam, the social upheaval and youthful rejection of mainstream values in the 1960's, and the lassitude of the slacker generation. When Wars Were Won does not rewrite history, it rights history |