Three-War Marine: The Pacific, Korea, Vietnam

Parry spent 30 years in the corps in a wide variety of assignments (climaxed by his directorship of Gen. William Westmoreland's Combat Operations Center during the Vietnam War) but was first and foremost an artillerist. In easy-to-understand terms, he explains what artillery is all about and how the big guns contributed to such campaigns as Guadalcanal and Chosin. This is also the autobiography of a man who has had many interesting experiences outside the war zone: these include early efforts to please a stern, demanding father; hell-raising days at the Naval Academy; a period in a psycho ward; and one very unusual marital problem during World War II (learning that his wife had become a Conover model and nightclub singer, he obtained emergency leave, flew from the Okinawa battlefield to New York and snatched her barely in time from the claws of show biz). Parry is a salty, tell-it-like-it-was writer whose comments on the military milieu are well worth reading. Photos. (September)