Last year I started reading challenging books to grandson Myrick and now I have a granddaughter Zoey who likes to be read to as well. Here I am sharing David Halberstam's The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War (2007). Halberstam devotes several background chapters to General Douglas MacArthur the controversial U.S. commander in Korea. Zoey agrees with Halberstam's description of MacArthur as a "mama's boy."
You be the judge:
Of not many American military heroes could it be said that they left home for West Point, their mothers uprooted themselves and moved to that small town on the Hudson. Pinky MacArthur took a room in the best local hotel, Craney's, in order to stand watch over Douglas for four full years at the academy, lest he fall below her expectations and slough off into mediocrity. West Point might been the most rigidly demanding four-year institution in America, but Pinky MacArthur there anyway, just in case the academy's contemporary custodians slipped a bit or did not realize how a remarkable a young man she had bequeathed them.
Zoey rates The Coldest Winter four bottles.
