Thank You, Cyril O'Brien: The Most Flattering Review I Ever Received: The Late Great Cyril O'Brien

I wrote a novel in 2007, The Chorito Hog Leg: A Novel of Guam in Time of War.  

I was disappointed in the book as I did not do a very good job of editing the work, I had paid an editor to do.  Plenty of typos.

Nevertheless, the book was favorably reviewed by Rose Keefe , the noted Crime biographer and historian, the late Martin J. Tully, USSF(ret), CPD (ret) and several combat veterans.

One of those heroes was the great Cyril O'Brien*, a Baltimore journalist and former White house correspondent who was Marine Combat correspondent on Guam. His review appeared in the Mariannas Islands Press and on Borders Books Review.

I have a very blessed life and this man's opinion of my work means almost as much to me as the good wishes from the hundreds of "kids" that I have taught over these past forty years,

Here is Cy O'Brien's review:

Guam Novel Praises the Chamorros as well as Marines

3190 days ago

Book depicts Chamorros going above and beyond By Cyril J. O'Brien There's an interesting novel with a different scenario on the liberation of Guam by Chicago, Ill., school teacher Pat Hickey. It depicts the often underwritten action on Chonito Ridge, and describes the Chamorro people as going above and beyond. It relates the battle story through fictional as well as actual leaders as a way of demonstrating the caliber of the people who fought that war on Guam. A student of the battle, Hickey is well into Able Company, 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines, led by Capt. Gary Bundshu in its impossible, day-and-a-half assault straight up to the crest of Chonito Ridge, a cliff overlooking the Asan beaches on Guam. The top was taken late in the second day after Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines, secured the rear and flank to let Able finish its ascent and hold it.

Using the Marines' nickname for the ridge, Hickey, in The Chorito Hog Leg' '(AuthorHouse 2007, Bloomington, Ind.) intersperses the story with surprising incidents, heroic actions, including the gratuitous cruelty of Japanese captors on the Guamanian people. The book is also punctuated with bits of holiness of sisters, mothers and girlfriends back in Chicago with rosaries and novenas. Hickey spices it with some seasoned ribald troop vernacular and surprises you with incidents and anecdotes that could make you lose the course of what is going on. Hickey also brings in the colorful gangster days that represented the Windy City at its zenith because it is from where the young Marines he describes are from.

Action started at sea And you may have forgotten how the first combat action of Guam was at sea. Pat describes it: the Japanese Kate spinning a torpedo toward the troop-jammed tank landing ship. (I was on the starboard side where the torpedo beaded). But a little LCI (landing craft infantry) ship in our assault convey, there to protect the troopship, nosed her bow into the torpedo bound for our ship. It blew off the LCI's bow and killed all on station there. We watched the next morning as a destroyer sunk the remains of the heroic little LCI.

Within the carnage of battle is a conflict arrayed in the book pitting a young man named Tim Cullen against his battalion commander over the possession of an 1860 Army Cold .45 Hog Leg revolver, which can be traced back to a captain who was with Custer. It brings in diversion and other interests, and continues the novel, but makes no 'neverminds' to history. Hickey, well anointed as an author, is a career educator, graduate of Loyola University, Chicago and now with St. Leo's High School in the city.

 

*Cyril J. O'Brien was a combat correspondent with the 3rd Marine Division in World War II, which helped liberate Guam. He lives in Silver Spring, Md.

The Chorito Hog Leg, Book One -Brings this Era To Life

The above page of the Leo High School Oriole 1944 presents some of the real sources for the fictional characters in my novel . Click this page on and get trip back in history.

This Review of my novel by History Channel Guest and consultant Cyril J. O'Brien appeared in Pacific Daily News:

Book depicts Chamorros going above and beyond
By Cyril J. O'Brien

There's an interesting novel with a different scenario on the liberation of Guam by Chicago, Ill., school teacher Pat Hickey. It depicts the often underwritten action on Chonito Ridge, and describes the Chamorro people as going above and beyond. It relates the battle story through fictional as well as actual leaders as a way of demonstrating the caliber of the people who fought that war on Guam.

A student of the battle, Hickey is well into Able Company, 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines, led by Capt. Gary Bundshu in its impossible, day-and-a-half assault straight up to the crest of Chonito Ridge, a cliff overlooking the Asan beaches on Guam. The top was taken late in the second day after Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines, secured the rear and flank to let Able finish its ascent and hold it.

Using the Marines' nickname for the ridge, Hickey, in "The Chorito Hog Leg" (AuthorHouse 2007, Bloomington, Ind.) intersperses the story with surprising incidents, heroic actions, including the gratuitous cruelty of Japanese captors on the Guamanian people. The book is also punctuated with bits of holiness of sisters, mothers and girlfriends back in Chicago with rosaries and novenas.

Hickey spices it with some seasoned ribald troop vernacular and surprises you with incidents and anecdotes that could make you lose the course of what is going on.
Hickey also brings in the colorful gangster days that represented the Windy City at its zenith because it is from where the young Marines he describes are from.


Action started at sea
And you may have forgotten how the first combat action of Guam was at sea. Pat describes it: the Japanese Kate spinning a torpedo toward the troop-jammed tank landing ship. (I was on the starboard side where the torpedo beaded).
But a little LCI (landing craft infantry) ship in our assault convey, there to protect the troopship, nosed her bow into the torpedo bound for our ship. It blew off the LCI's bow and killed all on station there. We watched the next morning as a destroyer sunk the remains of the heroic little LCI.

Within the carnage of battle is a conflict arrayed in the book pitting a young man named Tim Cullen against his battalion commander over the possession of an 1860 Army Cold .45 Hog Leg revolver, which can be traced back to a captain who was with Custer. It brings in diversion and other interests, and continues the novel, but makes no "neverminds" to history.

Hickey, well anointed as an author, is a career educator, graduate of Loyola University, Chicago and now with St. Leo's High School in the city.


Cyril J. O'Brien was a combat correspondent with the 3rd Marine Division in World War II, which helped liberate Guam. He lives in Silver Spring, Md.

Spike O'Donnell and Buck Weaver from The Chorito Hog Leg

Spike was embroiled in a court battle with one of the Boy
Scout contractors who ‘The O’Donnell’ had helped secure
a City contract to re-pave Ashland Avenue from 71st to 95th
Streets – about $ 200,000 net for the mealy-mouthed slob.
Spike had contacted all of the right boys from the anchor to
the top-mast of Public Works Administration and the final
sign off by Mayor Ed Kelly himself. Now the crumb welched
on consultant’s fee and went crying to the Cook County States
Attorney that Spike was shaking him down. But, hey, only
suckers beef. The Treasurer would help Spike brown the sugar
from this lump of blubber.
Joanie Cullen always talked to Spike when the Biddies and
the High hats avoided his gaze and immediate touch like Spike
was a leper. ‘Good morning Mister O’Donnell, Sister Malachy
said to say hello to you when I saw you this morning and I told
Sister that I you never missed Mass.’
O’Donnell was delighted by this skinny little chit in her veil
and with rosary beads twined around her mitt like a knuckleduster.
Joanie Cullen had eyes the size of the hub-caps on
O’Donnell’s Chrysler parked at the steps of St. Sabina’s. Father
Gorey was taking his own good time in getting down from the
sacristy in the hopes that Spike would disappear; Spike liked to
hang around just to tease the new guy taking Monsignor Egan’s
place.
‘What’d ‘Chin-Whiskers’ have to say for herself, Joanie? She
looking to take a few inches off my wallet for you fine young
woman over at old Mercy High? That crone scares me back
into Church, Honey. What’d she want any way?’
Joanie loved the gangster, like one her uncles. O’Donnell
had been shot in the back the previous March when all the
asphalt contracting hoopla had made it into the newspapers
and became an issue in Mayor Kelly’s re-election campaign
– the greater issue was whether or not Spike would live, but the
natural born tough guy recovered after a few weeks in Little
Company of Mary Hospital and his standard walks around the neighborhood. Joanie – and everyone else in Chicago – had heard
of his reputation as a bad man, but knew that tough dapper daily
communicant who was so devoted to his wife, children, brothers
and neighbors that he put out the glad hand and offer of help
to anyone he met. He was as funny as Mr. Duffy the political
boss and more at ease than Buck Weaver, the disgraced third baseman
from the Black Sox days who lived in a nice house
over in Little Flower parish on Winchester Street. Those three
men sat out in front of Hanley’s House of Happiness and played
pinochle almost every day or in front of the electrical appliance
store near the White Castle hamburger stand at 79th & Loomis.
Buck Weaver had a job as the Vice President of Standard State
Bank – the safest Bank in Chicago – because Spike banked
there – and had devoted most of his life to restoring his good
name in baseball. Buck Weaver had known that his teammates
were taking Arnold Rothstein’s payoffs but refused to be a rat
and that was the only reason that Kennesaw Mountain Landis
banned Buck Weaver from Baseball for life. All the others,
Shoeless Joe, Ciccote and the rest had snatched up the bribe and
thrown the World Series – only Buck was pure.
Joanie Cullen added, ‘Tim said hello to you too Mr.
O’Donnell and asked how you were recovering. I’ll bring the
letter tomorrow and show you where he says so. He’s training
for another battle I guess and says that he is working with two
nice boys, one an Italian kid from Ohio and the other a hillbilly
from West Virginia. Tim said the Dago is a great singer and is
with an orchestra around Cleveland, but works for Desoto and
the hillbilly got his first pair of shoes in the Marines and had
never been more than two miles from coal mines in his life. Tim
says that he is a real sweet guy and the ugliest person he ever
met and that includes Myron Muchinfuch, the usher at Notre
Dame Games.’
‘Uglier than Myron, come on that’s Orson Welles stuff.
Where is Tim, somewhere in the South Pacific again? Did he
say where?’‘Mr. O’Donnell, Tim says nothing accept that he wants
Mary Janes and Bullseyes from Morganelli’s and he always asks
about everyone else. Never know he’s in a war, if it weren’t for
the V-Mail. Al, Jack and Martin talk about the War all the
time and Al is up in Fort Sheridan – he’s a cop, like Father was,
an M.P. and keeps deserters in line.’
‘Al, always had the right makings for the Chicago Police
Department, unlike your Father who is too honest a man and a
Union man to boot. When all of the rest of those apple robbing
Micks in blue wool had no problem shooting at working men,
your father, Joanie, had the steel to tell that louse Capt. Connelly
to take a leap. That’s why you old man ain’t a cop any more. Too
honest. Al will be a Captain with his own bagman someday.
Joanie, here’s a fin – load up on MaryJanes and Bullseyes for
that brother of yours – best man with bag of tools I ever met
in my life. Tell him I did a few laps around the rosary for him.
Give my best to your mother and tell that Bog-man Father of
yours that he had better keep his ‘LOIGHTS OUT-ing’ away
from 82nd and Loomis if he wants to keep healthy and keep it
on Bishop with the other bog-trotters like himself.’
Joanie laughed like she meant it and had no school-girl giggle
which delighted the retired hoodlum more and she pocketed the
five-spot for a trip to Morganelli’s candy store on Ashland Ave.
later that day.