Chasing the Shadow

Mickey Marcus's 200 Days of Destiny

By Steven L. Ossad, and Reviewed by Lt. Col. Bradford H. Long

Article published on: January 1, 2026 in the Winter 2026 edition of Army History

Read Time: < 4 mins

University of Missouri Press, 2024 Pp. xxi, 296. $36.95

Steven Ossad delivers an exciting read with Chasing the Shadow: Mickey Marcus’s 200 Days of Destiny. The author accomplishes his goal of countering the oft-exaggerated portrayal of Col. David Daniel “Mickey” Marcus. Most importantly, Ossad’s careful research honors a life of service documented in historical correspondence, archives, and wartime memorials. As a result, readers enjoy a compelling chronicle of Marcus’s achievements as a World War II combat veteran, an early pioneer of the Civil Affairs Regiment, and an important adviser in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

Chasing the Shadow opens with the 1922 West Point boxing tournament, an offspring of General Douglas MacArthur’s “Every Cadet an Athlete” initiative. Cadet Marcus narrowly loses the match and is later diagnosed with a dislocated wrist suffered during horse-riding class. The prologue’s athletic cinema depicts Marcus’s personal resiliency, which was a byproduct of a fatherless childhood lived in poverty in a tenement between the Brooklyn-Manhattan subway and the Long Island Railroad. Following graduation and an initial tour as an infantry officer on Governors Island, Marcus transitioned into public civilian service, overseeing the New York penal system and working closely with then-Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, learning administrative efficiencies and gaining political acumen.

Marcus returned to the Army in the late 1930s, motivated by news reports of Germany’s early aggression in Europe. He served first as a judge advocate general officer in the New York National Guard in 1939, followed by the headquarters commandant for the 27th Infantry Division in 1940, and then division provost marshal when they departed for Hawai‘i. There, in O‘ahu in 1942, Mickey gained his first exposure to civil affairs as the islands remained under military rule following the Pearl Harbor attack. He later organized the 27th Infantry Division’s Ranger School. In March 1943, the War Department transferred him to the newly emerged Civil Affairs Division and then to Europe. Many tales from Marcus’s World War II combat experience seem to have been folklore; Osaad refutes, in detail, stories of Marcus as the sixth Allied soldier to arrive in France, tales of him wiping out Nazi machine-gun nests, and other colorful myths popularized in print and in the film Cast a Giant Shadow (1966), starring John Wayne and Kirk Douglas. In fact, these legends, many promulgated by family and friends with the best of intentions, bury Marcus’s important accomplishments. Ossad’s writing shines brightest in describing the facts of history: Marcus wading through the English Channel under fire, fighting his way onto Utah Beach, and entering a ruined Carentan, in flames and reduced to rubble, at 1100 on 11 June 1944. “That is how Mickey arrived in France, like tens of thousands of other US servicemen: scrambling out of a small boat, wet, miserable, scared, under enemy fire, and dragging heavy gear” (68). Marcus quickly set up operations in Carentan city hall, all the while connected to the supported 101st Airborne Division’s Headquarters, establishing himself as “as a pioneer of modern civil affairs” (75).

Marcus’s May 1945 visit to Dachau strengthened his faith as a devout Jew. Following the Army, he facilitated interviews with combat-experienced World War II general officers for Jewish paramilitary groups; this effort led to a follow-on engagement with Haganah leader Shlomo Shamir and a subsequent offer to serve as an American adviser to an early version of the Israel Defense Forces. Marcus accepted and extended his work into in-person participation, which must have seemed like a foretelling coming true after the years he had spent fighting young antisemitic bullies who sought to rob and humiliate elderly Jewish people on the New York subways. He ultimately served as the first general officer, or aluf, in the Israel Defense Forces and as the supreme commander of Jewish Forces, Jerusalem Front, breaking the Arab siege of Jerusalem just hours before a United Nations (UN)-supervised cease-fire. Sadly, Marcus perished in a friendly-fire accident following the battle, when a camp sentry errantly fired, perhaps believing him to be an enemy belligerent or an English-speaking officer from the Arab Legion.

Ossad amends old falsehoods, gives a truthful biography, and cherishes Marcus’s history of service to our nation and the U.S. Army. In addition to being an enjoyable read, Chasing the Shadow joins the March 2025 FM 3–0 Operations in reaffirming the requirement for civil affairs in large-scale combat operations. Vignettes from Seventh Army’s 1943 invasion of Sicily (Operation Husky), the 25th Infantry Division’s 1950 defense of Busan, Korea, and the 1950 UN occupation of P’yongyang, complement Ossad’s observations of civil affairs during competition, crisis, and armed conflict. U.S. military leaders ought not to prepare for tomorrow’s fight with yesterday’s tactics, planning for civil affairs solely as an information-related capability. Instead, leaders should follow the azimuth doctrine and lessons gleaned from history, such as those in Chasing the Shadow.