Title: Strong At The Broken Places
Author: J.T. James
Publisher: XlibrisUS
ISBN: 978-1-5144-7046-6
Pages: 454
Genre: Non-Fiction – Memoir
Reviewed by: J.W. Bankston
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For one starving boy coming of age in the 1960s, the local United States Marine Corps Recruiting Office was literally a warm room in a cold world. The events that led him to eventually serve in Vietnam are well-described in “Strong at the Broken Places,” J.T. James heartbreaking and occasionally exhaustive memoir. Kicked out of his house by an ever-drunk, abusive father, and on his own in more ways than one, young John Thomas wants to become a Marine. Asked his age, he tells the recruiter, “I’m twelve going on thirteen, and you said that someone can join under eighteen if you have your mom’s permission…” Informed that must wait another five years, J.T. pledges to return.
Thomas keeps this promise. If his readers have ever encountered difficult situations, the author hopes they “made better decisions than I.” He states he made many bad decisions. The harsh self-assessment sounds initially noble, but only the harshest moralist will judge this barely pubescent boy for his petty crimes. The money he steals is used mainly to buy food. Besides feeding himself, he also feeds his handful of younger siblings and his almost criminally helpless mother.
An intriguing hybrid, part “Angela’s Ashes,” part “Full Metal Jacket,” “Strong at the Broken Places,” doesn’t shy away from depicting the grim and gory details of growing up poor in New York and enduring brutal basic training after James finally enlists. The dark passages are mercifully lightened by occasional amusing digressions, like the account of what the author’s family did when his dad’s three “fiancés” showed up at his house simultaneously.
The second half of the book is primarily devoted to the author’s experiences during boot camp and combat at the height of the Vietnam War. Much of his behavior afterwards also seemed justified given what we now know about post-traumatic stress disorder. In some ways the later portion of the book reads as a perverse Horatio Alger fable as James climbs the ladder of corporate success.
Here I’ll admit to a bias against lengthy works. “Casablanca” clocks in at well under two hours; “The Great Gatsby” is a page-turner at less than 200 pages. Of course, classic books like “Atlas Shrugged,” and “Anna Karina,” or films like “The Godfather” and “Citizen Kane” may be an ideal length. Yet for every noble epic, there are dozens of others that could benefit from a bit of judicious trimming. “Stronger at the Broken Places” is often an amazing account, yet a little goes a long way whether it is
the multiple episodes of robbing parking meters or enduring the abuse of sadistic drill instructors. I also would prefer traditional chapter breaks. Despite these flaws, “Stronger at the Broken Places” is a powerful work, providing a clear-eyed, honest depiction of a world that is thankfully unfamiliar to most of us.
