Take China: The Last Of The China Marines

Harold Stephens
Wolfenden Publishers (2002)
ISBN  096425218X
Reviewed by Cathy Yanda for Reader Views (07/06)

Although this is a story of fiction based upon the life of the author, Harold Stephens, there is much to learn from this very special book. How many people outside of China know that for almost four years in the 1940’s the U.S. Marines were stationed there? For that matter, how many U.S. Marines know it?

In “Take China”, you will get to know the people of China, Japan and Russia from the viewpoint of one U.S. Marine. In some ways, we are not very different from the Chinese. He relates a story of drinking games of Chinese businessmen. Loud and boisterous, the men played scissors, paper and stone. Many of us grew up playing the very same game. The author also shares how a Chinese woman from whom he was taking language lessons exposed him to Existentialism, Kierkegaard and Jean-Paul Sartre.

There is also the story of his attending school in Peking. He went to learn Chinese and more about the Chinese culture. Little did he know until he was involved in the class work that many of the Chinese and other students knew more about American poetry and world history than he did.

You will also see the other side of combat. Before Mr. Stephens’ unit, the 29th Marines, arrived in China, they had been stationed in Okinawa (this was during World War II). He tells this story of one of the horrors.  “Terry poked his head up, grabbed his M-1, took aim and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened! His M-1 misfired. It was the mud. He called for my rifle…it too misfired. I thought we were doomed, and then I saw Terry leap from the foxhole. He grabbed his entrenching tool…like a mad man, he hammered down the man with crushing blows, until he beat him to death…When the rain stopped and the banzai charge was over, we climbed out of our foxhole, and there in the ditch was not a Japanese soldier but a young boy, perhaps eleven or twelve. He was stone dead.” Not many will be able to forget the picture this conjures and we did not experience it in person.

“Take China” is a well-written book with much detail. It is a story of fear, loss, patriotism and compassion. It is a story of love between Marines and the women they found in China. Most importantly, it is a story you will not easily forget about what it is like to be a Marine. Although, the author, Harold Stephens, has written many other books, I hope his next one takes up where this one left off and tells more of the stories of the 29th Marines once they returned from China.

As it is commonly said, “Once a Marine, always a Marine.” As a Marine, I am proud to be associated with the China Marines and to be a part of that tradition. Semper Fi.

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