Faithful Warriors: A Combat Marine Remembers the Pacific War

Lt. Col. Dean Ladd, USMCR (Ret.) · Steven Weingartner

Jul 2020 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Chris Sorensen

About this audiobook

Written with award-winning author Steven Weingartner, Faithful Warriors chronicles Dean Ladd's experiences as a junior officer in some of the fiercest fighting of the war in the Pacific. His recollections and descriptions of life-and death-on the far-flung island battlefronts of the Pacific War are vividly rendered, augmented by the recollections of a number of the men with whom he served. This memoir tells the story of how both Ladd and the Marine Corps came of age during history's greatest military conflict. His journey through the war is representative of many Marines in World War II: training outside of San Diego just before the war, awaiting the Japanese attack after Pearl Harbor as part of the Marine garrison on Samoa, surviving the savage fighting on Guadalcanal, resting and recuperating afterwards in New Zealand. Ladd is at his best when he is describes exactly what he saw, heard, and smelled within the mythical fifty-yard circle of his foxhole. From his narrative we learn of the bravery of men who mustered the courage to scramble down the nets for the landing craft, after facing the veteran's fatalistic fear that one's luck in surviving the next battle would surely run out and knowing the ferocity that would come.

About the author

Lt. Col. Dean Ladd, USMCR (Ret.), saw combat in the Pacific as a junior officer in the US Marine Corps and served in the Marine Corps Reserve after the war, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel. In all, he served thirty years in the Corps. A resident of Spokane, Washington, he remains active in several veterans groups.

Steven Weingartner, a historian and writer specializing in military history and military affairs, is the recipient of the 1998 Carl Sandburg Award for Nonfiction. He lives in La Grange Park, Illinois, where he contributes articles to magazines and journals and serves as a consultant and commentator for the History Channel.

Chris Sorensen is a veteran audiobook narrator with over 160 titles to his name. He has received three AudioFile Earphones Awards, and his recording of Sent by Margaret Peterson Haddix was selected as one of the Best Audiobooks of 2010 by AudioFile magazine. He is a member of SAG-AFTRA and the APA.