Joe Foss (1917–2003)

A Proud American The Autobiography of Joes Foss, Joe Foss with Donna Wild Foss, 1992 Pocket Books, 343pp, Photos, Maps, and Index. 0671757350
As indicated by title and author, this is an autobiography of MoH recipient Joe Foss, Marine pilot and hero of the Guadalcanal Campaign. The book was interesting and held my attention well, as it related his entire life up to 1992 (He died in 2003). I learned a great deal about the man, such as he served as governor of South Carolina and was the first commissioner of the American Football League.
I was expecting and hoping for a bit of his participation at Guadalcanal. It is not that he didn’t cover it well; I guess just wanting the story to be a bit more of the book than it was and less about his later life.
All in all, it was a enjoyable read and if you are interested in biographies of well-known personalities of the war, it is worth reading.… (més)

A military hero (as a Marine pilot, he shot down 26 Japanese planes) , two-term governor of South Dakota, first and only commissioner of the American Football League, and president of the National Rifle Association looks back on his life, career, and accomplishments. The first half of his autobiography--written with his wife--is a conventional, entertaining account of his upbringing on a Midwestern farm, his introduction to flying in the 1930s and his wartime aerial exploits. The second half disappoints as Foss jumps from one event to the next in a kind of outline of his multiple postwar careers. A man of action, Foss offers fairly unsurprising observations, with two exceptions. The first of these is his eyewitness testimony that future senator Joseph McCarthy participated in dangerous air missions in the South Pacific; the second is his defense of his friend the late Charles Lindbergh against charges of disloyalty and anti-Semitism. With a fairly ingenuous charm, Foss highlights his receiving the Medal of Honor from FDR and the thrill of being interviewed by Lawrence Welk.… (més)