Peru RPCV Hugh Pickens writes: "Goodbye Darkness" is a Powerful Memoir that explains the "Greatest Generation"



"The book bears more than a superficial resemblance to another favorite book, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," that is also a journey into darkness to discover the author's shadow self. Both books are written in first person, both recount a journey each author makes to places he had been before, both describe the memories that each author rediscovers during the journey, and both books end with the startling realization that the younger protagonist of the book and the author are one and the same. While Pirsig makes a motorcycle trip to Montana to a college where he taught before he had a nervous breakdown and was subjected to electroshock treatments that caused him to "lose" his memory, Manchester tells the story of his journey thirty years afterwards to the battlefields where he fought and of the battle wound that had made his subsequent memories "unreliable." "

Peru RPCV Hugh Pickens writes: "Goodbye Darkness" is a Powerful Memoir that explains the "Greatest Generation"

A Powerful Memoir that explains the "Greatest Generation",

October 16, 2006

Reviewer: Hugh Pickens (Baltimore, MD USA) - See all my reviews

To me "Goodbye Darkness" although on one level a memoir of the author's service in the US Marine Corps in the Pacific Theatre during World War II is really a journey of discovery of who the author is and the belief system that formed him during the 1930's and 1940's. The literary device he uses of revisiting the battlefields where he fought and rediscovering the memories he had suppressed for thirty years makes this one of the most powerful books I have ever read.

The book bears more than a superficial resemblance to another favorite book, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," that is also a journey into darkness to discover the author's shadow self. Both books are written in first person, both recount a journey each author makes to places he had been before, both describe the memories that each author rediscovers during the journey, and both books end with the startling realization that the younger protagonist of the book and the author are one and the same. While Pirsig makes a motorcycle trip to Montana to a college where he taught before he had a nervous breakdown and was subjected to electroshock treatments that caused him to "lose" his memory, Manchester tells the story of his journey thirty years afterwards to the battlefields where he fought and of the battle wound that had made his subsequent memories "unreliable."

There were a wealth of insights from "Goodbye Darkness" but three bear special mention. First, as a member of the baby boom generation (born in 1949), I grew up in the shadow of the "greatest generation" and have tried to understand the historical forces that formed my father's generation - the great depression and World War II. Manchester's memoir has helped me understand what it was like to grow up as a product of those two defining events of the 1930's and 1940's and why the world they returned to became so different from the one they had left.

My second insight from the book was an appreciation of the strength of the bond Manchester formed with the men in his platoon and the process of group cohesion that formed the bond that would motivate the men in his unit to fight not for their country, not for ideals, but for each other. It is a truism that the men who returned from WWII rarely discussed the experience they had undergone on the battlefield. Manchester is the exception in his desire and his ability to explain why men fought. By the end of the book I knew each of the men in his platoon and understood the process that made their loyalty to each other so strong.

I had seen the process of group cohesion myself in the 1970's to a lesser degree when I went through an intense fifteen month month training regimen followed by two years service as a Peace Corps Volunteer in South America when I formed friendships with my fellow volunteers that have lasted thirty years. I am now at the same age as Manchester when he made his journey to the Pacific that resulted in this book and his memoir has given me the idea of making my own journey back to Peru to revisit the places I served and rediscover the memories that formed me as a young man.

My third insight was the role that their lives in combat played in their subsequent lives. My special interest has always been the Peace Corps. I have long known that the fathers of the Peace Corps, John F. Kennedy and Sargent Shriver, both saw combat in World War II as did many other "Peace Corps Giants" like Jack Vaughn who fought in the Marines in the Philippines and who, at 85, is now the last surviving member of his platoon. It was Manchester's service in WWII that gave him the impetus to become one of the greatest historians of his generation. No one hates war more than a veteran and it was because they hated war that out of their sacrifice men like Kennedy, Shriver, and Vaughn sustained institutions like the United Nations and created organizations like the Peace Corps.

Highly recommended.

When this story was posted in October 2006, this was on the front page of PCOL:




Peace Corps Online The Independent News Forum serving Returned Peace Corps Volunteers

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The Peace Corps Library The Peace Corps Library is now available online with over 40,000 index entries in 500 categories. Looking for a Returned Volunteer? Check our RPCV Directory or leave a message on our Bulletin Board. New: Sign up to receive our free Monthly Magazine by email, research the History of the Peace Corps, or sign up for a daily news summary of Peace Corps stories. FAQ: Visit our FAQ for more information about PCOL.

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Support the US-Peruvian Trade Pact Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo, the Peace Corps President, has been lobbying both Democratic and Republican legislators to support the US-Peruvian trade pact before July 28, when his term ends and a US congressional recess begins. If President Bush fails to get approval before Congress goes on recess, it will be a case study proving that the United States does not reward its friends. Please call your representatives.

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History of the Peace Corps PCOL is proud to announce that Phase One of the "History of the Peace Corps" is now available online. This installment includes over 5,000 pages of primary source documents from the archives of the Peace Corps including every issue of "Peace Corps News," "Peace Corps Times," "Peace Corps Volunteer," "Action Update," and every annual report of the Peace Corps to Congress since 1961. "Ask Not" is an ongoing project. Read how you can help.

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