Military Review English Edition January-February 2017 | Page 138

among soldiers in combat. Second, Clavin painstakingly describes the duty to return home and care for our
wartime animal companions upon the conclusion of
their honorable service. This particular lesson was all
but forgotten during the Vietnam conflict. If not for
the combined efforts of soldiers and nonprofit groups,
animals used in Iraq and Afghanistan might have been
left behind. The final, and perhaps most important, lesson
to be gleaned is the role critical thinking plays in solving
complex problems. Pedersen found a successful, if seemingly unorthodox, means to improve his platoon’s ability
to accomplish the mission. Pedersen’s chain of command,
up to the c ommandant of the Marine Corps, not only
avoided the pitfall of micromanagement but also gave
their full support to his solution. Given the level of unnecessary oversight to the individual soldier level extant
in today’s military, this is a lesson worth remembering lest
we be forced to relearn it.

Lt. Col. Chris Heatherly, U.S. Army,
Pullman, Washington

AMERICANS IN OCCUPIED
BELGIUM, 1914-1918

Accounts of the War from Journalists,
Tourists, Troops and Medical Staff
Ed Klekowski and Libby Klekowski,
McFarland and Company, Inc., Publishers,
Jefferson, North Carolina, 2014, 296 pages

T

his book surprised me. I had little expectation
that a volume titled Americans in Occupied
Belgium, 1914-1918: Accounts of the War from
Journalists, Tourists, Troops and Medical Staff could hold
the interest of a serious military professional or student of
military history. I expected an eclectic travelogue at best,
but the authors delivered a different result. Ed Klekowski
is a retired professor of biology from the University of
Massachusetts, Amherst, and he writes with his wife,
Libby Klekowski. They openly admit that the book grew
out of their visits to a daughter and her husband who live
in Louvain, Belgium, but they felt compelled to tell this
story. They have produced a worthy historical account.
This book capably sets the experiences of Americans
who lived or travelled in Belgium during the Great War
in chronological context. Most historians of the western
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front largely ignore Belgium, except for early German
atrocities or the battles of Ypres, and they certainly do not
set events in the full context from German invasion until
war’s end, illuminating the effect of combat on the noncombatants. The Klekowskis do that, and meanwhile they
interweave some fascinating tales of personal American
experience from a great variety of perspectives. The story
of Herbert Hoover’s Commission for Relief in Belgium
is a principal part of this book. Americans also fought on
both sides, Allied and German. Aid workers, ambulance
drivers, curious businessmen, nurses, journalists,
and adventurers all have a
voice in this story.
Ed and Libby
Klekowski employ their
primary sources in a most
adept way, and no pertinent source is wasted. The
book is primarily based
on the memoirs of those
Americans who experienced World War I in
Belgium, but it also makes
great use of visual records, such as period postcards and
photographs, as well as contemporary sources such as
newspapers and journals. The Klekowskis have travelled
extensively in the region, and their knowledge of place
and setting adds much to the tale and is almost scientific
in its thoroughness. The book merges the facts of the
story with an amplifying visual record.
Americans in Occupied Belgium illuminates the experience of those Americans who were in Belgium when the
Germans invaded. One of the protagonists is the head of
the American Legation, Brand Whitlock, who remained
in Belgium until just before the United States declared
war on Germany in April 1917. He was a critical actor in
mediating with the occupying Germans and in diplomatically ensuring the welfare of American citizens trapped
in or transiting Belgium during the German occupation,
sometimes at personal cost. Brand Whitlock was both a
model diplomat and a selfless humanitarian.
The Klekowskis’ motivation to write the book originated in their visit to the reconstructed library in
Louvain, paid for after the war principally by Americans.
The inexcusable burning of an entire library of books,
including irreplaceable medieval manuscripts during the
January-February 2017  MILITARY REVIEW