Something About a Soldier

by Charles Willeford

Libro usado en buenas condiciones, por su antiguedad podria contener señales normales de uso

Genres: Biography, Memoir, History, War, Nonfiction, Autobiography

255 pages, Hardcover

First published March 12, 1986

About the author

Charles Willeford was a remarkably fine, talented and prolific writer who wrote everything from poetry to crime fiction to literary criticism throughout the course of his impressively long and diverse career. His crime novels are distinguished by a mean'n'lean sense of narrative economy and an admirable dearth of sentimentality. He was born as Charles Ray Willeford III on January 2, 1919 in Little Rock, Arkansas. Willeford's parents both died of tuberculosis when he was a little boy and he subsequently lived either with his grandmother or at boarding schools. Charles became a hobo in his early teens. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps at age sixteen and was stationed in the Philippines. Willeford served as a tank commander with the 10th Armored Division in Europe during World War II. He won several medals for his military service: the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, two Purple Hearts, and the Luxembourg Croix de Guerre. Charles retired from the army as a Master Sergeant. Willeford's first novel "High Priest of California" was published in 1953. This solid debut was followed by such equally excellent novels as "Pick-Up" (this book won a Beacon Fiction Award), "Wild Wives," "The Woman Chaser," "Cockfighter" (this particular book won the Mark Twain Award), and "The Burnt Orange Heresy." Charles achieved his greatest commercial and critical success with four outstanding novels about hapless Florida homicide detective Hoke Moseley: "Miami Blues," "New Hope for the Dead," "Sideswipe," and "The Way We Die Now." Outside of his novels, he also wrote the short story anthology "The Machine in Ward Eleven," the poetry collections "The Outcast Poets" and "Proletarian Laughter," and the nonfiction book "Something About A Soldier." Willeford attended both Palm Beach Junior College and the University of Miami. He taught a course in humanities at the University of Miami and was an associate professor who taught classes in both philosophy and English at Miami Dade Junior College. Charles was married three times and was an associate editor for "Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine." Three of Willeford's novels have been adapted into movies: Monte Hellman delivered a bleakly fascinating character study with "Cockfighter" (Charles wrote the script and has a sizable supporting role as the referee of a cockfighting tournament which climaxes the picture), George Armitage hit one out of the ballpark with the wonderfully quirky "Miami Blues," and Robinson Devor scored a bull's eye with the offbeat "The Woman Chaser." Charles popped up in a small part as a bartender in the fun redneck car chase romp "Thunder and Lightning." Charles Willeford died of a heart attack at age 69 on March 27, 1988.

Reviews

[Jayakrishnan · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite writers V.S.Naipaul had this to say about Ernest Hemingway - "Hemingway didn't know where he was, ever, really. He was so busy being an American and that was his subject matter. You wouldn't have any idea, from Hemingway or Fitzgerald and their stories or writings about Paris, that Paris was in the most terrible way between the wars. They just talked about the cafes, the drinks and oysters and things like that. They don't see the larger thing outside."

Something About a Soldier by Charles Willeford is an example of this sort of writing. I am not criticizing Willeford and saying that he should have expressed some sort of liberal piety throughout this rollicking memoir of his time in the US Air Corps during 1936-1938 in the Philippines. I loved this book. Everything detailed in the book happened when Willeford was under 20 years old when all he cared about was getting drunk, filling his stomach with Pansit ("Filipino national dish, a combination of something like beef chop suey topped with soft noodles and drowned in a pungent soy sauce") and screwing Filipino prostitutes. The memoir itself was published in 1986 when he was 67 years old.

So Willeford is busy being an American in this book. Some of his self confidence and contempt for the Filipino men and women seems to come from the fact that the US is an emerging superpower. American soldiers are looked up to and they have a lot of social mobility in the Philippines. There is very little commentary about Philippines or why the country allowed Americans to build a base over there. The general tone of Willeford's writing seems to be that the Filipinos ought to be grateful that the Americans have built a base over there and they would kill each other the moment the Americans left (I read on Wikipedia that the Clark Air Base where Willeford was stationed, was systematically looted when the Americans finally left in 1991!!!).

Willeford handled a number of jobs in the Air Corps - that of oil filler, cook, truck driver etc. His experiences during a furlough at Camp John Hay are hilarious.

A part in the book where a Roman Catholic American solider tries to convert a pagan Igorot tribesman who is about to be executed was a short story in Second Half of the Double Feature.

Willeford was a hustler who wanted to live life to the fullest. He is always broke and can barely make ends meet but he is always on the lookout for an opportunity to get drunk or get laid. There is no sentimental mushy stuff here. It is just a very honest and freewheeling memoir. One of the best books I've read in 2015.

[Jayakrishnan · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite writer, V.S.Naipaul had this to say about Ernest Hemingway - "Hemingway didn't know where he was, ever, really. He was so busy being an American and that was his subject matter. You wouldn't have any idea, from Hemingway or Fitzgerald and their stories or writings about Paris, that Paris was in the most terrible way between the wars. They just talked about the cafes, the drinks and oysters and things like that. They don't see the larger thing outside."

Charles Willeford's Something About a Soldier is an example of this sort of writing. I am not trying to shit on Willeford by saying that he should have expressed liberal piety throughout this rollicking memoir of his time in the US Air Corps during 1936-1938 in the Philippines. I loved this book. Everything detailed in the book happened when Willeford was under 20 years old when all he cared about was getting drunk, filling his stomach with Pansit ("Filipino national dish, a combination of something like beef chop suey topped with soft noodles and drowned in a pungent soy sauce") and screwing Filipino prostitutes. The memoir itself was published in 1986 when he was 67 years old.

So Willeford is busy being an American in this book. Some of his self confidence and contempt for the Filipino men and women seems to come from the fact that the US is an emerging superpower. American soldiers are looked up to and they have considerable social mobility in the Philippines. There is very little commentary about Philippines or why the country allowed Americans to build a base over there. The general tone of Willeford's writing seems to be that the Filipinos ought to be grateful that the Americans have built a base over there and they would kill each other the moment the Americans left (I read on Wikipedia that the Clark Air Base where Willeford was stationed, was systematically looted when the Americans finally left in 1991!!!).

Willeford handled a number of jobs in the Air Corps - that of oil filler, cook, truck driver etc. His experiences during a furlough at Camp John Hay are hilarious.

A part in the book where a Roman Catholic American solider tries to convert a pagan Igorot tribesman who is about to be executed was a short story in Second Half of the Double Feature.

This book was a very entertaining read. Willeford was a hustler who wanted to live life to the fullest. He was always broke and could barely make ends meet but he was always on the lookout for an opportunity to get drunk or get laid. There is no sentimental mushy stuff here. It is just a very honest and freewheeling memoir. One of the best books that I read in 2015.

[Blair Roberts · Rating 5 out of 5]

Something About a Soldier is an autobiography about Willeford's time in the Army from 1936-1939 while stationed in the Philippines and California. It was neat to see how he adapted events from his service and, with slight alterations, in his books. In particular, works such as The Machine in Ward Eleven.

"The lower down the social scale a man is, and a private in the National Guard has a lower standing than a Civilian Conservation Corps boy, the more apt he is to get fucked over by the people in power."

"'Last time I was in Panama I was in a bar where I could drink a glass of rum, smoke a cigarette, get a shoeshine and a blow job, all at the same time—and for only four bits.'"

"I laughed. 'I write poetry,' I said, 'and I read four or five books a week.'
'You don't want to join the infantry, then. The infantry don't need poets.'"

"All Canavin wanted from life was to carry a rifle, remain a buck private, and have no responsibilities at all. But the Army doesn't work that way. When the Army discovers a rare man like Canavin who is capable of doing many things, it makes him do them, regardless of his desires."

"I continue to gripe about things, and I probably always will, but I also know, deep inside me, that my life is good."

"My sense of humor had gotten me into trouble before."

"Elena wasn't a particularly satisfying lay, but I was used to that by now. At least while she was on her back the ugly scar didn't show, and she didn't keep asking 'You through? You through?' like most of them did."

"When a man is told something he doesn't know, he almost always thinks it's a lie, simply because he hasn't heard about it before. I know I have the same tendency but I've learned to be a little more open-minded about learning new things than other men."

"Coslow told me that the best job in the Army was to be a straight-duty infantryman."

"Don't worry about gettin’ laid. If there's an army barracks around, there'll be women within spitting distance."

"'Jesus,' I said, kidding him, 'you paid two bucks for a blow job? You could've got one of the sailors on the boat to give you one for nothing.'"

"If a man wasn't careful the Army could coarsen him, and I knew I had to protect my sensitivity if I was ever going to write anything first-rate."

“Any man who has been a soldier feels superior to men who have not been in the Army. He has been tested, and they have not.”

“If you’re going to get drunk, get drunk. If you’re going to get fucked, get fucked. But whatever you do, don’t get drunk and fucked.”

“It just went to prove that all a man had to do in the Army was to live right, work hard, and all the good things would eventually come his way. It had certainly worked out that way for me.”
-Charles Willeford

[Shawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite this book being half a detailed account of the drudge work and half a guide on how to spend pay money while on leave on women, booze and food, I wasn't really bored. It was like a less dramatic From Here to Eternity. Now I understand a lot more of Willeford's novels, his knack for details and loose psychoanalysis of his characters, because he seems to more or less get along with most people and knows how to work systems.

[Glenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you've read Willeford's fiction and wondered where his arguably jaundiced view of human behavior came from (not that he doesn't sufficiently lay it out in the fiction itself, come to think of it), well, his account of his first five years in the U.S. military will give you some idea. Relaxed in the way that only prose thoroughly worked over can be, it is often jaw-dropping.

[False · Rating 4 out of 5]

I could not put this down. I've been reading as many of Willeford's books as I can get my hands on (all of the Hoke Mosley fictions,) but after that, it thins out, in terms of availability. This is where I need the Library of Congress back in my life again.

I enjoyed this book so much I couldn't put it down. "Something About a Soldier," (not to be confused with Mark Harris's novel of the same name Something about a Soldier , which I also admired.) There was much in this raunchy military memoir that I could relate to, though Willeford's adventures in the army took place during the American Depression. He joined the military to escape the lack of work and money. He writes about the tedium and boredom of much of his first hitch in the Air Corps as a fuel truck driver in the Philippines, but also provides graphic details about his frequent drunks and sexual escapades with local prostitutes in his off-duty time. He also describes local natives, drinks and food - delicacies like 'baluts,' which were odiferous fertilized duck eggs, something I remember reading about in James Crumley's Vietnam era novel, One to Count Cadence . He hung out with a couple Signal Corps men who, he said, could copy fifty words a minute in Morse code. His description of the whores he encountered in Hawaii brought to mind the characters from James Jones' classic WWII novel, "From Here to Eternity." His training with the Cavalry during his second hitch was equally fascinating. As is his habit, Willeford teaches you all of the names of horse parts as well as equipment.

Willeford fancied himself a poet, though he dropped out of junior high before enlisting in the army at sixteen, in the depths of the Great Depression, to escape a life of grinding poverty in Los Angeles. He was a voracious reader, devouring the work of Thomas Wolfe, Steinbeck and Jack London, as well as some of the hack writers of his day - Tiffany Thayer, Donald Henderson Clark, etc. - writers popular with his army buddies. For being a reader, one uncle nicknamed him "Captain Creampuff." That says it all.

Willeford ended up serving twenty years in the army, and emerged from WWII as a much-decorated veteran. He did go to college much later in life and taught at the University of Miami. He authored nearly twenty books, including many popular detective novels. He died in 1988, just two years after the publication of this book. I really enjoyed Willeford's story and was sorry to get to the end of it. Wished I could call him up and chat. No dice with that. R.I.P., Will. And thanks for sharing these great stories from your youth. Highly recommended.

[Michael Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

A treat for Willeford fans, this features his usual sharp observations and wry humour, delivered in nicely cadenced prose. The book covers his own military experiences as a recruit in Philippines and California during the 1930s. Some of the anecdotes - not to speak of the general mindset - were used used in his later crime novels, so it's interesting to discover their origins.

Underlying the story, there is a certain anger at the personal cost of army approaches (e.g., a friend spends 2 years of his youth at an isolated gun emplacement with nothing to do but polish the cannons, ending up withdrawn and resigned). But he also acquires a respect for army discipline and gains some insights into his own strengths and weaknesses.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great memoir, one of the best. Every page, not exaggerating, has at least one anecdote that is humorous, bizarre, charming, disturbing, unexpected, morally questionable, or a combination of those. Willeford seemed to be an old hand at taking things as they come and making the best of them. This is generally a positive, good-natured book, but anyone made uncomfortable by sex talk should stay away. It's not Penthouse Forum level, but it's sometimes close.

[Rory Costello · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anybody who enjoys Charles Willeford's fiction owes it to themselves to read this memoir. Not only are the stories remarkable (their impact is oddly heightened by deadpan delivery) but also you will see the author's formative influences.

One could also regard this as a companion to "From Here to Eternity".

[A Cesspool · Rating 5 out of 5]

The number one rule in horseshoeing:
Fit the shoe to the foot, not the foot to the shoe.

[Craig Childs · Rating 4 out of 5]

"In the Army, if a man has scruples of any kind, his only protection against ridicule is to keep them to himself."

After three years of riding the rails and living as a teenage hobo, as told in I Was Looking for a Street, Charles Willeford finds himself back at his childhood home, living with his grandmother again, who still cannot afford to take care of him. So, he lies about his age and joins the US Air Corps in 1935…

In this witty 2nd volume of his autobiography, Willeford details his experiences stationed in the Philippines and then later joining the US Calvary, which at the time still used horses. (One of the funnier anecdotes involves the Army training a crop of city slicker recruits how to clean a horse's sheath.) It was a peacetime military marked by economic waste and lack of discipline.

Much like the previous volume, this one is full of funny anecdotes and rambling discourses on random topics. It adds up to a colorful recollection of military life that is far from the usual stories of the Greatest Generation who served just a few years later during World War II:

The war fever that gripped the Pacific after the Japanese sank the USS Pinay in 1937…

Fellow soldier “Wild Horse Hawkins” who agreed to an arranged marriage to a girl from the Missouri hills, sight unseen. It did not end well. She shot him between the eyes with his own .45 pistol…

Bribing other men's Filipino girlfriends for sex, and getting a bad case of crabs…

Heckling the High Commissioner of the Philippines, Paul McNutt, during his round of golf against Bobby Jones…

Willeford’s girlfriend Maria, who wanted to make love to him in a single-room flat full of sleeping children…

Preparing dog for dinner…

Skimming fuel and food to create a black market on the base…

The Army doctor who stole cadavers and made ashtrays of their bones and watch straps from their skin…

The corporal who married a prostitute and pimped her to his men at half price…

On the lack of leadership in the Air Corps: West Point grads avoided the Corps. This is because there is little correlation between success at the academy and an officer's ability to learn to fly effectively. Yet, any graduate that failed to find success as a pursuit pilot in the Corps would receive a permanent black mark on his career…

On shooting the major's dog: "What the major wanted, and what the first sergeant wanted, I supposed, was an apology, but I wasn't going to apologize for following their orders."

On finding the head cook passed out drunk his first day of duty: "Cooking for 120 men is not as simple as one thinks it is, and I developed a lot of respect for Army cooks, even though most of them are rummies."

After reading this book, I was surprised to learn Willeford stayed in the military until 1949. He served with distinction in Europe in World War II and was awarded a Silver Star, a Bronze Star for outstanding bravery, a Purple Heart, and the Luxembourg War Cross. Frankly, none of this valor or patriotism is in the book. Whether due to false humility or a deliberate intent to satirize, Willeford portrays himself as a cynic and an opportunist.

I listened to the audiobook read by Dan McGowan.

4 stars

[Vytas · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a joy to read. Maybe also because of the army experience, but the Goodreads rating tells me that this coincidence might not be the case. They don’t make ‘em like this anymore.

Hemingway said that if you want to write and write well, begin by writing the truest sentence that you know. And Willeford does exactly that, but with honesty, and without any desire to put anything extra into situation that’s not there. In short - no pose and no melodrama.

Which is often the case with Hemingway. Willeford’s writing in “Something About a Soldier” is what Hemingway could be if he knew how to take it as it comes, enjoy himself and not look for misery, pain or insight. Because it’s not always there and nor should it be. You outgrow your Hemingway period, and you get to Willeford. His writing’s not sentimental at all – but there’s no macho bullshit either.

Bear in mind that this book was written by an author whose father died from tuberculosis when he was 3, his mother four years later, and who joined the army when he was 16 because there was the Great Depression and he didn’t want to burden his grandma and uncle economically. This all is presented simply as life – as it goes and as it happens.

That’s why it’s like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - for adults. The river is where the enlistment takes you, and on it there are passing acquaintances who you know are just passing, Filipino and Hawaiian whores, places you wouldn’t visit otherwise, trouble, adventure and something to be learnt.

It’s as freewheeling as Kerouac’s “On the Road”, but it has so much more moxie. Because it’s easy to be freewheeling when you write about crossing America three times, and it’s so much harder when you’re writing about three years in army posts where nothing really happens. Not even a bloody small-scale war with the Japs.

If you read any of Charles Willeford’s books and liked his writing, this one you will love. If you thought there was something more behind his peculiar idiosyncratic pulp noir writing – there is.

[wally · Rating 4 out of 5]

#20 from willeford for me.

something about a soldier, charles willeford, 1986, paperback, 274 story-pages long

dedicated: for john stephen hooker

this on a white page:
the author's work, no matter how intelligent, elaborate (proust) or rich and vigorous in imagination, always turns out to constitute a justification for some particular set of values, a making out a case against something or other in favor of something else, a melodrama in which, even if the hero is actually defeated, he is morally triumphant--and the hero may not be a person or persons but merely certain qualities or tendencies.
--edmund wilson, the twenties (The Twenties: From Notebooks and Diaries of the Period)

a note from c.w. names places incidents have been altered...many altered. this that the other

one, begins:
the trooper died,
and by his side
they placed a wreath.
he tried to get the button
in the sheath.
--c.w.

if you are like me, probably either you skip the epigraph above a chapter, or else you read it and forget about it once you get into the narrative. this time, however, if you haven't read the epigraph, please do so now.

you betcha...i've included it in my notes/review/index. you would not have placed it there had it not been important.

okee dokee then, as the good doctor said (carrot, 1979)...onward and upward.

this autobiography/memoir/story from willeford begins in 1939, a nineteen-year-old willeford on his 2nd enlistment, six months into his 2nd enlistment, rolling a smoke at the machine gun troop stables (horses, may it do ya fine), watching a wedge of sardine boats head out of monterey bay, smelling the canneries nearby, and noticing the "i-c" painted on the rump of old raz, another nineteen-year-old soldier kin to comanche, this one inspected and condemned.

time place scene setting
*opens, march/april 1939, machine gun troop stables, 11th u.s. cavalry near monterey bay, california
*la ida's on cannery row, [cat-house]
*giglin military reservtion/camp ord
*c.w. sailed to the philipines on the u.s.s. ulysses s. grant, leaving from san francisco
*stops in hawaii, guam on the way
*clark field, philipines
*manila
*assorted places around clark field

characters
*a 19-yr-old charles willeford, six months into his 2nd enlistment. he is at the machine gun troop. his 1st enlistment was spent in the army air corps, enlisting middle of december, 1935...and it was not easy to get into the service--where men wanted to go to beat the depression--there were only 45,000 men in the standing army at the time, including the air corp. c.m. spent 1 year at march field, riverside, california and two years in the philipines at clark field. prior to the army air corp, c.w. had been in the national guard for a matter of weeks.
*willeford's parents died of t.b. when he was young
*his grandmother took care of him, she had a job with the may company, lost her position, so late in december, 1935, that was motivation to go into the army (air corps)
*he also had an uncle, an exec w/southern bell
*old raz...a horse...also 19, inspected and condemned
*sgt. bellows, stable sgt
*socky/sokoloski, chief horse-shoer, pvt 1st class, 3rd class specialist
*wild horse halkins, 2nd horse shower
*party crashers, another horse
*knackers, civilians
*misplace, another horse
*mike brasely, 1st sgt
*chesty, another horse, charles' horse
*major burns, p.i. the dog of the major's that cm shot
*skippy...because they had standing orders to shoot strays
*1st sgt in the p.i. married to a filipino. (the dog-shooting story is also included elsewhere in c.m.'s stories...although where exactly i forget)
*a corporal standing in uniform outside the pacific electric building on main street...los angeles, i take it, instrumental in directing the 16-yr-old c.m. to the army air corps

a quote or two
a man's soul's worth more than an extra forty-two pesos a month.

a young man with a hard-on can get used to damned near anything.

tagalog: phonetic: ahko mall-ah-guy-ah eenie eebig geetah...i'm happy because i love you.

back in the states gas sold for about eight gallons for a dollar.

update as i read
some amusing tales herein, tales you'd likely not read anywhere else...like this pee-wager. another wager that c.w. did not get in on and i'm still trying to figure it out. the "fuck-you" lizards. apparently some sort of lizard that attached itself to whatever, screens maybe, and made a noise that sounded like "fuck you, fuck you, fuck you." heh! i thought it was funny. that, and the quotes above. too, c.w. describes a village scene where a baluga woman gave birth...walking along. stops. life going on all around. she gives birth in a squat. puts the baby to her breast. nobody takes notice, save c.w. who happened to be leaning against the wall at the time.

update, finished, 15 oct 13, a rainy tuesday evening, 6:06 p.m. e.s.t. tigers playing the sox world series playoffs...ooga booga
an entertaining story-book telling of willeford's time (not all of his time) in service, his first two enlistments. story begins and ends on the monterey peninsula where he is a member of the machine gun troop...horses and all. based on the bio-sketch on his page or wherever it is he also spent time in the war, tank troops or something...and none of that experience is herein. this is "peace-time" soldiering.

in between the beginning and the end, he spends time in the philippines...two years i think it was...and in between he also serves his first three-year enlistment, returns home, but the depression is on the boil, still...and he reenlists...horse troop this time. he tells tales about the men with whom he served, tales about the people where he served, tales about some of the now-men who were his school-age buddies.

willeford has an easy conversational-style of writing that is easy on the ear. he isn't out to impress you with convoluted sentence structure or two-dollar words. some of the stories he tells herein are also a part of that other read of his...i forget which one exactly, maybe
I Was Looking for a Street. there probably isn't story here that will blow you out of the water, although there are likely takes herein that you won't read anywhere else.

good read. check it out.

[Trevor Holliday · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classic memoir by Charles Willeford about his 1930s era military service serving in the peacetime Air Corps in the Philippines, and shoeing horses while stationed in the Presidio of Monterey, California.
Gritty writing from a man who knows himself well and is free from self-pity. Hilariously funny and poignant, this book perfectly captures the mind-numbing boredom of army life existing side-by-side with fleeting friendships and enmities.
Obvious comparisons could be made between this and autobiographical works by Charles Bukowski and John Fante. I liked Willeford's better.
Side note: this book would be well paired with Steinbeck's Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday. Several references to the old Cannery Row and its residents.
Jaw-dropping quotes, some of which were enumerated in a review by Blair Roberts.
PS: If you're going to complain about Willeford's ribald subject matter, just don't read this book. Find yourself something which is not as likely to offend your sensibilities.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Willeford follows "I Was Looking For A Street" with his autobiography of his early Army service in thr Philippines, and later as an Army farrier in Monterey. Seems if he wasn't working, he was drinking and spending money on the ladies, trying to get as much value for his Depression-era Army pay.

[Matthew Dambro · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book about ten years ago. It was an excellent rendition about the pre WW II Army stationed in the Philippines.

[Sgt. Rock · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anyone who has ever served an enlistment in the U. S. armed forces will enjoy this book. Enertaining, informative, enjoyable reading.

[Dave Naz · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great autobiography by decorated (pretty sure that included a purple heart) soldier, Charles Willeford. In this book he writes non-wartime stories about his drinking and picking up prostitutes. A great read.

[Brandoncrawfordsmith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Damn fine autobiography from Charles Willeford. Willeford is about as honest as a human being can be in detailing his earliest years in the Army Air Force in the Philippines.

[Riley · Rating 4 out of 5]

The real scoop. What soldiers really do. Interesting stuff on soldiers' life in foreign country in peacetime.