Review of Rudy Tomedi’s No Bugles, No Drums

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Recommended: US involvement in the Korean war

Review of Rudy Tomedi’s No Bugles, No Drums

What are the major wars in which the U.S. fought? A typical American might mention the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World War I, World War II, Vietnam, the Gulf War, and most recently, the war in Iraq. However, one war absent from this list proved to be one of the most casualty-laden but least recognized by the American public as a significant war: the Korean War. In his book No Bugles, No Drums: An Oral History of the Korean War, Vietnam veteran Rudy Tomedi offers the personal memories of dozens of soldiers who participated in “the forgotten war.”

It must be understood that if one is looking for a book that is extremely accurate about historical details of the war, this is not the book to read. Personal memories are, of course, incredibly subjective and prone to be altered by things people discover after the fact; however, this book is not meant to be a far-removed historical account. As explained in the Author’s Note, Tomedi did his best to leave the interviews as unedited as possible in terms of the facts, adding ...

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