Of war memoirs there is no end, though soldiers of any given war eventually fade away. Also, their memories of a conflict may remain vivid decades later, but repetition can wear certain stories into smooth, shiny pebbles different from the rockier, darker truth. Then there are the warriors who embellish their legends from the beginning, when they aren't making them up out of whole cloth.
So, Gerald A. Meehl's fascinating if over-stuffed memoir of Robert "Bob" Sheeks' experiences as a U.S. Marine Japanese-language officer in the Pacific during World War II is unusual in not only its late arrival, 67 years after its subject's military service ended, but also in its rich detail, as though Meehl, a writer and photographer who has known Sheeks since a chance encounter in North Borneo in 1979, reported his subject's story weeks rather than nearly a lifetime after the fact.
Sheeks, who later had a successful career as a bureaucrat, businessman and Asia consultant, stands out less for his heroics, though he was under fire in the marine invasions of Tarawa, Saipan and Tinian, than for his dedication to saving lives in a conflict that was often without mercy.