Please join the Yale Club of Dallas as Bryan Mark Rigg (Yale '96) discusses his newly released book, Flamethrower.
EVENT DETAILS:
DATE: Thursday, June 18, 2020
TIME: 5:30-6:30 PM CDT
COST: Free for YCOD members and guests
REGISTRATION: Those who register will receive a link to zoom meeting subsequently.
REGISTRATION LINK: Flamethrower - Eventbrite
FLAMETHROWER: Iwo Jima Medal of Honor Recipient and U.S. Marine Woody Williams and His Controversial Award, Japan’s Holocaust and the Pacific War - By Bryan Mark Rigg
“There aren’t many great men. There are just great challenges that ordinary men like you and me are forced by circumstances to meet.” – U.S. Navy Fleet Admiral William Halsey Jr.
The Battle of Iwo Jima may be one of the most remembered and pivotal engagements of World War II, but what do we really know about it? FLAMETHROWER (Fidelis Press; April 7, 2020) is former U.S. Marine Bryan Mark Rigg’s incredible, controversial and meticulously researched account of the battle drawing from experiences on both sides, revealing fascinating details behind the Allies’ military strategies and tactics.
This nonfiction tour de force captures the brutal realities of war, letting readers in on the drama and human anguish experienced by ordinary men facing extraordinary circumstances. FLAMETHROWER covers the spectrum of war-time experience, everything from the horrors of hand-to-hand combat to steep moral dilemmas.
The book focuses on two primary characters: USMC Corporal Hershel Woodrow “Woody” Williams, a Medal of Honor recipient, and the Imperial Japanese Army’s Tadamichi Kuribayashi, who commanded Iwo Jima and was said to be one of Japan’s toughest leaders.
Rigg takes readers deep inside the history of Iwo Jima and how Americans viewed the war’s beginnings, through the lens of Woody’s life from his West Virginia roots. Rigg also takes readers into the machinations of the enemy mind: “Few Americans understand just how fanatical and grotesque the average Japanese soldier was back then.”
Rigg documents the battle in unblinking detail, as well as the actions, events, sentiments NS controversy surrounding Woody receiving the Medal of Honor. Did Woody get the medal because the Marines felt he merited it? Was political pressure a factor? Rigg leaves no stone unturned.
There’s an equally amazing back story about how the massive book almost didn’t get published, facing harsh objections from one source you likely would suspect (Kuribayashi’s family) and another you probably would not (Williams himself).
In the course of examining details regarding Williams and Kuribayahsi, Rigg uncovered “troubling facts about both warriors that made me struggle with a different sort of battle that many scholars encounter: the pursuit of evidence against interest.”
Rigg says FLAMETHROWER “has been written with much soul-searching, heartache and many a sleepless night. I hope you agree that it is far better to deal with uncomfortable truths, rather than beautiful lies, if we want to learn from history to build a better society.”
FLAMETHROWER can be purchased at: Flamethrower - Amazon Link
BRYAN MARK RIGG has a passion for history and social justice, and says he lives by the themes he took to heart during his time in the U.S. Marine Corps and at Yale University. Those principals were the impetus behind his decision to set up his own firm, Rigg Wealth Management, in 2009. He is the author of Hitler's Jewish Soldiers, which won the William E. Colby Award for Military History, was featured on NBC-TV's Dateline, and has been translated into 11 languages. He is also the author of Lives of Hitler's Jewish Soldiers: Untold Tales of Men of Jewish Descent Who Fought for the Third Reich and The Rabbi Saved by Hitler’s Soldiers; Rebbe Joseph Isaac Schneersohn and His Astonishing Rescue.