The Emperor's General by James Webb

"The Emperor's General" was written by current United States Senator from Virginia James Webb. To give you a little background on Webb he served in the Marine Corps during the Vietnam War as an infantry leader. He then went on to serve as a lawyer on the Veterans Affairs Committee then to go on to serve as Secretary of the Navy during the Reagan Administration. After leaving the Department of Defense Webb would go to be an award winning journalist for his work on the ground embedded with troops in Lebanon.

Webb always has loved the art of writing and this is what he turned to in his years before arriving in the greatest deliberative body in the world, that being the United States Senate. One of the people who in fact read the book and was gracious enough to lend his thoughts on it for a back of the cover declaration was future colleague of Webb's and fellow Vietnam veteran Senator John McCain. McCain praising the book as a wonderful piece of work..

Webb would go on to take considerable criticism from his opponent in the 2006 Virginia Senate Race George Allen for some of the raunchy and realistic sex scenes which are described in this book and some of the other very truthful struggles that James Webb described as knowing about the life of an everyday soldier. To be honest with you I think Allen looked foolish and out of touch with the struggles that someone can be faced with on the ground in a time of war.

"The Emperor's General" is a mixture of fact and fiction. The ladder getting the dominant share of the page. Webb certainly doesn't seem to obfuscate his views on whether General Macarthur conducted the postwar trials properly. By all accounts the picture that Webb paints of Macarthur seems to be overwhelmingly accurate. The portrait that is drawn of the flamboyant military man is exactly that; an egocentric, image concentrated man who did not like to be disagreed with. This is why most of his staff are simply ones who pretty much do his bidding and only voice their personal views when Macarthur is in abscensia. The novel centers around General Douglas Macarthur's staff as he tries to salvage something respectable out of postwar Japan.