by Pa Rock
Reader
A few years ago while channel surfing, I came across an oddball film about a GI being dumped from an army cargo plane onto a remote, icy runway. He was bounced ingloriously from the plane and his barracks bag quickly followed - and then the plane roared off down the runway and into the bleak, Arctic sky. It became apparent as the story began to unfold that he was a young corporal who had gone drinking the night before his flight to his next duty station in Hawaii, and that something had gone terribly wrong in the interim.
The base where he arrived just as he was sobering up was in Greenland, and he was officially misidentified as another soldier who had been expected at the base, undoubtedly a conniving genius who was now unpacking in Hawaii. The commander at the Greenland base had been expecting a new public information officer to start a newspaper, and protestations aside, he gave that responsibility to the new arrival.
The year of the military misadventure was 1979.
The film was interesting, and funny at times - sort of a MASH goes to Greenland - but it was also weak. I muddled through the movie, but felt that I must have missed some important plot points along the way. Not long afterwards I succeeded in forgetting all about it.
A couple of months ago as the coronavirus was settling over the land, I was again channel surfing trying to find something to occupy my time in quarantine. I found a movie titled "Guy X" that I decided to check out. It turns out that it was the same Greenland movie that I had watched a few years before. Remembering how unimpressed I had been with it, I decided to give it a chance at redemption. This time it made a bit more sense, but it left me with the impression that I was still missing an important chunk of the story. Then, at the end as the credits rolled, I saw that it had been based on a novel - "No One Thinks of Greenland."
I made a decision to find a copy of the out-of-print book and try to figure out what there was about the original story that made it worthy of trying to turn it into a movie. Amazon quickly came to the rescue!
The novel, "No One Thinks of Greenland" by John Griesemer - an accomplished author as well as a successful Broadway and movie actor - was first published in 2001 and tells the fictional story of a young Air Force corporal, Rudy Spurance, who arrives at a secret base in Greenland, under orders and not through some personnel mix-up, and is swarmed by mosquitoes as he steps off of the cargo plane that dropped him at the remote destination. Rudy wakes up in the base clinic where he has been hospitalized due to massive amounts of mosquito bites.
The year is 1959.
Corporal Spurance, whose training is in public information, had not been requisitioned by the base, but the commander, Colonel Woolwrap, decides to hang onto the new arrival anyway and use him to start a base newspaper. The Colonel's administrative assistant (and paramour), a beautiful red-headed sergeant by the name of Irene Teal, helps Rudy get established in his new position - and as she does, romantic tension begins to percolate between them.
In the ensuing weeks Rudy forms close bonds with a small cast of strange characters who help him to publish the new base newspaper which Colonel Woolwrap has named "The Harpoon." Also during that time Rudy begins to visit and become familiar with "The Wing," a highly secret base hospital that is the true reason for the base's existence. The Wing houses portions of living human beings who were torn apart during the Korean War ten years earlier. Their wounds and disfigurements are so severe as to prohibit their return to their families and society. These soldiers had been officially listed as "missing in action," and were brought to the secret hospital in Greenland to live out the remainder of their lives in as much comfort as the military could provide.
Rudy, as he walks about The Wing talking to various pieces of humans, stumbles upon one of these remnants of humanity who suddenly speaks back. The fellow, who consists of a torso with one arm and only pieces of fingers, and a head with one eye and one tooth, is listed as "name unknown," and he won't let Rudy know who he actually is - telling Rudy that he can call him "Guy X." Guy X and Rudy become close friends.
And then a mysterious General shows up who has a different agenda for the base, and troops start being reassigned as the base slowly begins closing. That advancing base closure becomes the impetus for most of the action in this story as it bounces through the tensions between the Colonel and Rudy over Irene, Ireme's struggles over security versus love, everyone's battle with the elements and in particularly the "stark raving dark," and Guy X's desperate struggle to survive - and weighing it all down is a thick blanket of military bureaucracy and a Greenland blizzard.
"No One Thinks of Greenland" is, in every respect, so very much better than the movie, "Guy X." The book is somewhat of a mash-up between the MASH novels and television show (pun intended) and Dalton Trumbo's monumental anti-war novel, "Johnny Got his Gun." It is a disturbing blend of humor, pathos, and horror that will leave you thinking about Greenland long after the book has been closed for good.
"No One Thinks of Greenland" is a compelling tale and well worth the read.
Reader
A few years ago while channel surfing, I came across an oddball film about a GI being dumped from an army cargo plane onto a remote, icy runway. He was bounced ingloriously from the plane and his barracks bag quickly followed - and then the plane roared off down the runway and into the bleak, Arctic sky. It became apparent as the story began to unfold that he was a young corporal who had gone drinking the night before his flight to his next duty station in Hawaii, and that something had gone terribly wrong in the interim.
The base where he arrived just as he was sobering up was in Greenland, and he was officially misidentified as another soldier who had been expected at the base, undoubtedly a conniving genius who was now unpacking in Hawaii. The commander at the Greenland base had been expecting a new public information officer to start a newspaper, and protestations aside, he gave that responsibility to the new arrival.
The year of the military misadventure was 1979.
The film was interesting, and funny at times - sort of a MASH goes to Greenland - but it was also weak. I muddled through the movie, but felt that I must have missed some important plot points along the way. Not long afterwards I succeeded in forgetting all about it.
A couple of months ago as the coronavirus was settling over the land, I was again channel surfing trying to find something to occupy my time in quarantine. I found a movie titled "Guy X" that I decided to check out. It turns out that it was the same Greenland movie that I had watched a few years before. Remembering how unimpressed I had been with it, I decided to give it a chance at redemption. This time it made a bit more sense, but it left me with the impression that I was still missing an important chunk of the story. Then, at the end as the credits rolled, I saw that it had been based on a novel - "No One Thinks of Greenland."
I made a decision to find a copy of the out-of-print book and try to figure out what there was about the original story that made it worthy of trying to turn it into a movie. Amazon quickly came to the rescue!
The novel, "No One Thinks of Greenland" by John Griesemer - an accomplished author as well as a successful Broadway and movie actor - was first published in 2001 and tells the fictional story of a young Air Force corporal, Rudy Spurance, who arrives at a secret base in Greenland, under orders and not through some personnel mix-up, and is swarmed by mosquitoes as he steps off of the cargo plane that dropped him at the remote destination. Rudy wakes up in the base clinic where he has been hospitalized due to massive amounts of mosquito bites.
The year is 1959.
Corporal Spurance, whose training is in public information, had not been requisitioned by the base, but the commander, Colonel Woolwrap, decides to hang onto the new arrival anyway and use him to start a base newspaper. The Colonel's administrative assistant (and paramour), a beautiful red-headed sergeant by the name of Irene Teal, helps Rudy get established in his new position - and as she does, romantic tension begins to percolate between them.
In the ensuing weeks Rudy forms close bonds with a small cast of strange characters who help him to publish the new base newspaper which Colonel Woolwrap has named "The Harpoon." Also during that time Rudy begins to visit and become familiar with "The Wing," a highly secret base hospital that is the true reason for the base's existence. The Wing houses portions of living human beings who were torn apart during the Korean War ten years earlier. Their wounds and disfigurements are so severe as to prohibit their return to their families and society. These soldiers had been officially listed as "missing in action," and were brought to the secret hospital in Greenland to live out the remainder of their lives in as much comfort as the military could provide.
Rudy, as he walks about The Wing talking to various pieces of humans, stumbles upon one of these remnants of humanity who suddenly speaks back. The fellow, who consists of a torso with one arm and only pieces of fingers, and a head with one eye and one tooth, is listed as "name unknown," and he won't let Rudy know who he actually is - telling Rudy that he can call him "Guy X." Guy X and Rudy become close friends.
And then a mysterious General shows up who has a different agenda for the base, and troops start being reassigned as the base slowly begins closing. That advancing base closure becomes the impetus for most of the action in this story as it bounces through the tensions between the Colonel and Rudy over Irene, Ireme's struggles over security versus love, everyone's battle with the elements and in particularly the "stark raving dark," and Guy X's desperate struggle to survive - and weighing it all down is a thick blanket of military bureaucracy and a Greenland blizzard.
"No One Thinks of Greenland" is, in every respect, so very much better than the movie, "Guy X." The book is somewhat of a mash-up between the MASH novels and television show (pun intended) and Dalton Trumbo's monumental anti-war novel, "Johnny Got his Gun." It is a disturbing blend of humor, pathos, and horror that will leave you thinking about Greenland long after the book has been closed for good.
"No One Thinks of Greenland" is a compelling tale and well worth the read.
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