Wendell Fertig

Brig. Gen. Wendell Fertig, whose name means "ready" in German, is the undisputed anti-hero of this war novel. He is a lovably eccentric renegade warrior, but not as much of a square cog in a round hole as Yossarian, the anti-hero of the absurdist, comic novel Catch 22 by Joseph Heller. Fertig seems a true patriot, impatient with the military bureaucracy and itching for a fight with the enemy instead of a neurotic survivalist like the reluctant bomber pilot Yossarian. The rogue officer commands a great deal of respect and loyalty from his men as he organizes a guerrilla attack against the Japanese in the Philippine Islands in 1942. Although he is absent and only alluded to by other characters for most of the novel, his presence is nevertheless felt as a kind of inevitable force for right not unlike the command by Gen. George Washington of the ragtag...