Books and Bayonets

The Memoir My Dad Wouldn't Write

It was the final half of the 1950's. The U.S. was basking in the glow of its Ozzie and Harriet delusions. It was a culture in deep denial and in no way prepared for the sea change of a decade it was headed toward. In many ways my dad, Eugene B. Redmond was the same. He'd joined the Marines after less than a year in college. He was a young man in flux. A young man in prelude to a breakthrough. Like the country, he was unaware of how the ensuing years would shape him. In this episode we talk about his decision to join the Marines, how he began to come into his own as a writer, and especially how his understanding of manhood was challenged by the military. Oh, and there's a little story of how one of his platoon members tried to gore him with a bayonet!

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