A Proud American: The Autobiography of Joe Foss

The story recounted here makes Horatio Alger look like an also-ran. At first Joe Foss was not unlike most other teenage boys on South Dakota farms during the Depression of the 1930s. He worked to help his family make ends meet and longed for escape to something more exciting. Also like many of his contemporaries he was enthralled by airplanes, but at that point his life took a different turn from that of most other rural South Dakotans. He was able to attend the state university--through which he is quick to point out he worked his way--and followed his dream of aviation by beginning flying lessons in 1937 and going through the Civilian Pilot Training Program run by the Civil Aeronautics Authority as a war preparedness measure in the late 1930s.As soon as he graduated from the University of South Dakota, Vermillion, in 1940, Foss joined the U.S. Marine Corps and entered pilot training. In the fall of 1942, fresh from pilot training and service as an instructor, he arrived in the Pacific Theater and was assigned to a Marine aviation unit at Guadalcanal. When Foss reported for duty, Guadalcanal was one of the hottest combat zones in the world, with daily attacks by the Japanese on the American foothold on the island. During six weeks of combat, Foss flew several dozen sorties and recorded 23 air victories. He received the Medal of Honor for his actions and became a public hero in the eyes of an America that was desperate for heroes. Foss' later World War II career never equaled that early success and fame, but that was in part, he says, because the Marine Corps was hesitant to have a genuine war hero get back into real combat where his death might hamper morale.Foss' war record set him in good stead after the hostilities. He was able to start a small aviation business in South Dakota, and his hero status served as a springboard for his election to the state House of Representatives in the latter 1940s. From there he ran for governor and eventually served two terms in the mid-1950s. Afterward Foss was appointed commissioner of the infant American Football League, serving between 1959 and 1966 and helping to build an organization that could challenge and eventually function on an equal basis with the much older NFL. He was also an avid outdoorsman and found a way to make hunting and fishing pay by hosting ABC-TV's "American Sportsman" between 1962 and 1965 and later hosting his own syndicated series. All this time he was a senior officer of the South Dakota Air National Guard. He remained active in civic, benevolent, and business affairs until his death.This book ballyhoos Foss' successes and slides over his faults and failures. That is not particularly unusual in autobiographical writing. The occasional honest and straightforward memoir will appear, such as that of Ulysses S. Grant, but they are more rare than not. This book is the rule rather than the exception. It is also not bald-faced apology, like Richard Nixon's memoir, but it tends to self-ag

Joe Foss may will have been the most celebrated hero of WW II.The feats which earned him the Congressional Medal of Honor are now legend. He describes them in detail in this his autobiography.Anyone with the slightest interest in aerial combat will thrillto the excitement of how he and a small flight of 4F4 fightersdefeated a ten to 20-fold larger Japanese force. The keen judgement and tenacity he showed in this war feat would appear again and again in some half dozen career accomplishments. Besides his WW II heroics,Joe will be remembered most as a two term governor of South Dakota and as commissioner of the American Football League, where he lead an upstart organization to prominence. His other career adventures provide equally exciting reading.A man of boundless energy and indomitable spirit he has moved through the American scene desmonstaring a combination of character, talent and mannerisms the nation has not seen sinceDavy Crockett. I would describe this book as one which everyfather should give to his son.Don NapierCorpus Chriati, Texas