Product Description

Historical memoir about a living WWII human intelligence officer and war hero.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #578579 in Books
• Published on: 1999-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 377 pages

Customer Reviews

Hotelier and Spy
A great read about a remarkable man. I knew Brandy personally and this book doesn't give him true justice but does tell the story of his amazing life. A must read for those in the hotel industry or those that have ever stayed at Las Brisas. The book covers his military days thru to his retirement ,as a spy and hotelier extrodinaire ,in the hills above Acapulco. Buy it and you won't have a regret only perhaps your life could have been as fullfilling and adventurous.

Amazing encounter
I met Colonel Frank Brandstetter in Omaha beach, Normandy-France, late 70's. Fantastic personality, true humanity, a great lesson of life at a time when the Cold War was not over yet.

I was assigned to Ste.Mere Eglise by the Commander of the 32nd Company Division, during my national service after finishing the military academy (reserved officers). Mission was to be the "ordonnance" of this VIP for the D-Day ceremonies. There were also exhausted officers just back from Vietnam. We tried our best to take care of all these great people, and shared a lot of good and intense moments during the ceremonies.

I was early 20, he was soon 70 and Frank told me a lot about the war and the peace, about the life and death, about mission and respect, and how to be able to "carry on" day after day.

I remember his comments about General Ridgway, about Europe and USA, about horrors of war and hate but he mostly talked, free, about peace and how to maintain the peace and build the future. It was really an experience! God, he spoke so many languages in the same time. The whole crowd around was impressed, so was I. Well, I saw him with my eyes and heard with my own ears how he had managed and practice the talents he had during WW2 and after that, in Europe.

If one of the most important thing in life, for all of us, is to know what are the good things we leave behind us; well, i guess that Frank could teach a young man and a few other guys at an important time in their lives, how to manage and forecast the rest of their lives; and he did it well. I have not met Frank again, and I often thought about Accapulco and "Brandy" in his colourful Jeep riding in the jungle around the resort, opened to the astronauts back on earth, all of them firmly standing on the world again.

I never forgot his fascinating character. He achieved a hell of a job as an Officer who had a tough life, as a man, and as a friend.

Later on, my work drove me and my wife to work in the Far-East, very closed from a place where General Ridgway took over the work of an other historical icone, Doug. Mc Arthur. And I often remembered, on assigments for my media, a couple of lessons Frank Brandstetter tought to me.

I really think the writers did an extraordinary and fascinating book, and I thank them from the bottom of my heart for that amazing encounter, now presented and shared with people. Bravo ! Joel Legendre

A Living Hero
As a baby boomer, the only personal connection I had with WWII, was that my father worked as a chemist on the Manhattan Project in Washington State.

So when a friend sent me a copy of Brandy: Our Man in Acapulco: The Life and Times of Colonel Frank M. Brandstetter, I thought what does this book have to do with my life?

The answer is everything. The authors of this compelling historical memoir, Dominic Monetta and Rodney Carlisle, brought WWII and the Cold War to life for me.

Colonel Brandstetter's life reads like a Hollywood screenplay. this book has everything fiction has: espionage, movie stars, strong American values, heroic rescues and escapes. It is refreshing to know, in a world where sports figures are amongst the few heroes our young people admire, that there is a living war hero who saved hundreds and hundreds of lives as a human intelligence officer - a humble man with the courage and passion to make a difference.

I would urge teachers to request Brandy: Our Man in Acapulco as required reading in high schools around the country.