[Yb4bulVR]

A very entertaining and informative book by J Marteen Troost details the two years the author spent in the nation of Kiribati (pronounced Kiribas) and specifically on the island of Tarawa with his wife who was assigned the area by the non profit agency she worked for.

Troost detailed the daily life of the inhabitants as well as the history of the island nation. He described the military battle for the island during WWII where 4,000 Japanese and 1,000 Americans lost their lives in the 72 hour battle for control of the island in 1943.

I really enjoyed Troost's novel.

CNN today posted the story of the group of researchers that are now looking for the remains of the Marines buried on the island for repatriation.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapc...ex.html?hpt=C1

Tarawa, a South Pacific atoll, was the site of one the bloodiest battles in Marine Corps history. Starting on the morning of November 20, 1943, more than 1,000 American men were killed in roughly 72 hours of fighting with the Japanese. Hundreds of Marines were gunned down in the water trying to make it to shore.

Tarawa was before Iwo Jima. For Marines, the battle is both a source of pride and a lesson learned. The high casualties were blamed in part to poor planning. The attack was launched during low tide, which left a lot of the landing craft stuck on coral.

The Japanese were sitting in fortified bunkers along the shoreline, shooting Marines at close range as they attempted to make it to the beach. In the end, the Marines took the beach and won the battle. An estimated 4,000 Japanese soldiers died in the fighting, over what was considered at the time a strategic airstrip in the Pacific.


don

[ulw7A8Po]

I watched the video at the link in your post. Its very interesting and i would like to learn more. Where can i buy his book? I want to get a copy of the book because i want to learn more about it and you make it sound really good.

[MFSSCW2c]

I watched the video at the link in your post. Its very interesting and i would like to learn more. Where can i buy his book? I want to get a copy of the book because i want to learn more about it and you make it sound really good.

You can get a used copy from Amazon for as low as 44 cents.

http://www.amazon.com/Sex-Lives-Cann...1715121&sr=8-1

At 26, Troost followed his wife to Kiribati, a tiny island nation in the South Pacific. Virtually ignored by the rest of humanity (its erstwhile colonial owners, the Brits, left in 1979), Kiribati is the kind of place where dolphins frolic in lagoons, days end with glorious sunsets and airplanes might have to circle overhead because pigs occupy the island's sole runway. Troost's wife was working for an international nonprofit; the author himself planned to hang out and maybe write a literary masterpiece. But Kiribati wasn't quite paradise. It was polluted, overpopulated and scorchingly sunny (Troost could almost feel his freckles mutating into something "interesting and tumorous"). The villages overflowed with scavengers and recently introduced, nonbiodegradable trash. And the Kiribati people seemed excessively hedonistic. Yet after two years, Troost and his wife felt so comfortable, they were reluctant to return home. Troost is a sharp, funny writer, richly evoking the strange, day-by-day wonder that became his life in the islands. One night, he's doing his best funky chicken with dancing Kiribati; the next morning, he's on the high seas contemplating a toilet extending off the boat's stern (when the ocean was rough, he learns, it was like using a bidet). Troost's chronicle of his sojourn in a forgotten world is a comic masterwork of travel writing and a revealing look at a culture clash. don

[kmjbbT3U]

dang Don, that does sound interesting