The Scariest Place in the World: A Marine Returns to North Korea

By James Brady

Book Overview

Half a century after he fought there as a young lieutenant of Marines, James Brady returns to the brooding Korean ridgelines and mountains to sound Taps for a generation. It's been 15 years since Brady first wrote of Korea in The Coldest War, drawing raves from Walter Cronkite and The New York Times , which called it "a superb personal memoir of the way it was." In the spring of 2003 Brady and Pulitzer-winning combat photographer Eddie Adams, a couple of old Marines, "gentlemen rankers off on a spree," flew in Black Hawk choppers and trekked the Demilitarized Zone where it meanders into North Korea, interviewing four-star generals and bunking in with tough U.S. Recon troops, in Brady's words, "raw meat on the point of a sharpened stick." The two Marine veterans bond with this handful of youthful GIs confronting the loopy and nuclear saber-rattling North, in a contemporary Korea which just might become the war we have to fight next. Brady recalls that first time on bloody Hill 749, the men who died there, what happened to the Marines who lived to make it home, and experiences yet again the emotional pull of a lifelong love affair with the Corps in which they all served. With consummate skill James Brady summons up the past and illuminates the present, be it the Korea of "the forgotten war", the Yanks who fought there long ago or today's soldiers standing wary sentinel over "the scariest place in the world". The result is uplifting, inspiring, often heart-breaking, and this new Brady memoir proves as powerful as his first.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312332424
• ISBN13: 9780312332426
• Release Date: April 2005
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.24 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.6" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

From what I hear, its a good book!

I bought this book as a xmas present for my grammpa, he was a marine who fought in Korea the same time the author did....He is half was through it, and he is really enjoying it. Can't say enough good things about it!

Great read

I loved this book. I served in Korea with USMC during the exact same time frame. It brought back many memories

A warm look back at a cold and scary place

Man... Talk about crabby... Everyone else who's reviewed this book so far here don't seem to be impressed. But I always enjoy James Brady's writing and this book was no exception. It's a memoir, of course. The underlying theme of the book is the march of time and how one looks back at -- or in this case, returns to -- a specific geographic place where youthful impressions were made, ideals died or changed... Where a young, unsure Marine officer discovered he did, in fact, have what it took to lead Marines in combat. Those looking for edge-of-your seat combat with Marines gunning down on-rushing human waves of Chinese infantry will be disappointed. This book is more like a love letter to youth and to the Marine Corps. And taken in that context, it's a fine book and a satisfying read.

I loved it

Well, yes, the title is misleading. And those of you who expect to find another novel about the Korean War are going to be disappointed. It is not a book about North Korea, it is a book about a man looking back at a life well lived, remembering people who deserve to be remembered.