Also, I thought somehow the fierce fighting of the Japanese in the Pacific Islands was factored somehow into Truman's decision to drop the A-bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Is that perspective true (I may be mistaken-- it's not a decision I have spent any serious time pondering or researching, but just accepting as a part of history) and if so, is it present or missing in the book/movie?
I have not read this book---I read his follow-on, "Flyboys," (no relation to the WW I airplane movie out now). It was disappointing: he seems to raise a moral equivalence between us and the Japanese. Yes, Bradley deals with their atrocities, but goes out of his way to cite our atrocities, too. We had some, no doubt, but they were the exception, not the rule. The Japanese made it a PRACTICE of raping every woman they came across, and in China, then of killing them and EATING them. There is absolutely no comparable practices in the U.S. military, ever, even in the west where most cavalary units did not practice scalping or "Sand Creek" type operations.
Get it...if your recipient is at all interested in that sort of thing, it's a "can't put it down" winner; best book I've read in several years.
Flags of Our Fathers, the book, is outstanding. This from a 47 year-old mom, albeit history buff. I've read it twice, and I'm ready to go around again.