I wrote in a 2020 review that "The Remains of the Corps Volume I: Ivy and the Crossing" was one of the most unique and innovative books I had read in a long time. It was the military history of a family of Marines, the Remains, taking place during World War I and told by author Will Remain, family historian and Vietnam veteran.

The author creates 80 characters, all with scars and backstories so believable you forget this is fiction. Fiction about the characters, yes, but detailed dramatic accounts of people at war based on research and experience — the events, battles, strategies, conversations and emotions. Remain captures it all.

Yet Remain, too, is a fictional character, a pseudonym for the real-life Tom Hebert, a former Marine in his own right. And he created a world with such description and through such beautiful language that students of the military as well as casual readers should surely take note.

In his description in Volume I of Top Sergeant Duncan “Mac” MacCallum, Remain writes, “One didn’t have to worry about getting on his bad side — that is where you started.”

And with “Mac” MacCallum, that’s where The Remains of the Corps Volume II: The March Across Samar (EG&A Publishing ) takes flight. This is a flashback volume. The years are 1901-1902. The venue this time is the Philippines. And if readers want to understand how Remain catapults them right into the setting, they need not go further than page one as our protagonist finds himself mired in the oppressively hot and suffocating jungle, about to slog through a 35-mile journey across Samar.

“The Absolute Acid Test…”

To set the scene, after defeat in the Spanish-American War, the more than 7,000 islands that comprise the Spanish Philippines became property of the United States. The U.S is on the lookout to extract hemp, for which the U.S. was short (used in the manufacture of rope) and for which the Philippines were a leading producer.

In Remain’s story, 55 marines, headed by Marine Major Littleton W.T. Waller, are charged with navigating through the 35 miles of jungle in an effort to locate the Old Spanish Trail and identify a potential route where telephone and telegraph wire could be strung — to guard the territory and intercept smugglers.

This is hardly a simple mission — between the physical elements and potential boobytraps from rebels resistant to Americans suddenly controlling their land. And, as Remain notes in the first book, “Combat is, without a doubt, the absolute acid test for revealing the inner man. It is the ultimate blood sport.”

This sentiment is not lost on Mac, who at one point faces one-to-one combat with a crazed warrior — an isolated moment in the grand scheme of things but significant in describing a theme throughout the work of how men think, feel and act in the proximity of death. It’s not for the weak at heart, as Mac loses a fingertip and is slashed across the face leaving a scar that stands as a symbol, both literally and figuratively, of the situation.

“…The Ultimate Blood Sport”

While Mac lives the rest of his life with those badges of courage, he stands as a survivor. That can’t be said for so many others. In fact, at its core, Volume II is about young Marines dying too soon and violently. It is proper and fitting then that the March Across Samar is dedicated to two individuals — the “Two Henrys” — who also died far too young and in a violent manner. The younger Henry — the grandnephew of Tom Hebert — was recently murdered in Florida at the hands of his mother at the age of 4. The older Henry — the uncle of Tom’s wife Ellie — was killed in France in 1944 at the hands of a sniper at the age of 28. Both the boy and the man are well-remembered by the author and beautifully drawn — in the flower of their youth — by Tara Kaz.

The action and events, chronicled in great detail as seen through the eyes of Mac and his comrades, are almost secondary when one considers the glory of this work. Remain has a knack to put readers right in the jungle, experiencing both the danger and drudgery of the mission, interjecting personalities from different backgrounds who come together for a common goal, whether they believe in it or not.

Again, it’s easy to forget this is not a memoir or documentary. The author doesn’t miss a bead of sweat. And add the marvelous illustrations by Tara Kaz, a glossary of terms, several maps and a full cast of players to get the complete picture. The Remains of the Corps Volume I was as poignant and different a military book as I can recall. And now Will Remain, in The Remains of the Corps Volume II, has given us much more dense and intricate storytelling to savor, and only further build the anticipation for subsequent planned volumes in this riveting series taking us all the way to 1975 and the Vietnam War.