Once An Eagle, by Anton Myrer.
New York: HarperCollins, 2000.
$17.95 - 848 pages.

Dec. 7, 1941. Sam Damon and his father-in-law, Gen. Caldwell, are playing croquet at a party hosted by Bert MacComadin, a wealthy industrialist who has made part of his money selling scrap iron to the Japanese. Suddenly the news comes over the radio that the Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor.
MacConnadin is furious that the military has not successfully resisted the Japanese attack.

“By Jesus, if something like this happened over at the plant there’d be hell to pay, I can tell you that!”
The general looked at him. “Oh, heads will roll - if that’s what’s bothering you.”

“Well, isn’t it bothering you? I should think it ought to ... Jesus, you even called it!” he exclaimed, pointing to Sam. “You knew it was coming, all of you! Why in hell didn’t you do something about it, take some measures, if you knew?”

“We wanted you to have a good return on your investment, Mr. MacConnadin,” Sam’s voice broke in the room. He was shaking with wrath, and his face was terrible. Tommy had never seen him look like this; it frightened her into silence. “Now. Today. Just part of the return.”

I looked up this passage from Anton Myrer’s novel, Once An Eagle, while reading still another article about the Chinese stealing computer and defense secrets from the United States while we go on favoring Chinese trade and filling our local Wal-Mart full of Chinese goods. Slowly I started turning the pages in my old copy of this book, easily remembering scenes from my many previous readings.

Once An Eagle is a remarkable novel with a remarkable publishing history. It is an anti-war book, yet it is the American military which has kept it alive in the 33 years since its publication. It is a beautifully crafted book, so that reading it, especially in the original hardcover edition, is nearly a physical pleasure. It will seem preachy to some, but to many other people, particularly soldiers, it is powerful preaching indeed.

Sam Damon, the hero of Once An Eagle - we can’t call him a protagonist, only hero will do - is a small-town Nebraska boy who, having failed to attain a direct appointment to West Point, enlists in the Army in time to fight both Pancho Villa on the Mexican border and the Germans in World War I. War is the anvil against which Damon and his men are pounded; they acquire a measure of glory and learn the cost of glory when a handful of them hold a French farmhouse against a company of Germans. Yet in the continuing offensive Damon eventually loses his best friend and is himself severely wounded.

After being befriended by Gen. Caldwell, and then marrying the general’s daughter, Tommie, Damon elects to remain in the Army. Myrer does a fine job of explaining life in the Army between the wars: the ennui, the formal military life, the dusty posts, the slow pormotions. He also creates wonderful characters in Damon and Tommie, their friends Ben and Marge Krisler, and the ambitious and cold Courtney Massengale.

The Second World War brings enormous changes to all their lives. Damon and Ben find themselves not only fighting the Japanese, but also superiors like Courtney Massengale. Again Myrer makes us aware of the cost of war, its noble and ignoble actions, its devestating effects.

The novel ends with Damon summoned from retirement to assess a situation in Southeast Asia in a fictional country similar to Vietnam. In his attempts to keep the United States out of a civil war, Damon again clashes with Massengale; he has seen first-hand the troops which Massengale wants to support and knows that they will not withstand the rigors of war.

What makes this book so popular among the military - it is on the Marine Corps Commandant’s reading list and is required reading at West Point as well as at other military schools and institutions - is the character of Damon himself. He is a soldier’s soldier, a man who loves peace but fights hard in war, a man who believes in the concepts of what sometimes seem obsolete concepts such as morale and loyalty, a man who is a part of the system but who is not afraid to speak out when the system goes wrong.

If you haven’t read this one, let me recommend that you go to your nearest bookshop and pick it up. It is a wonderful, intriguing and powerful work.

(Minick owns Saints and Scholars Bookstore on Main Street in Waynesville.)

 

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