Books Archives



More Fallout from Hood

By Shannon P. Meehan

Brief forward (John): All, we're honored to have with us a new blogger -- Shannon Meehan. Shannon is -of course- a VMI man and an Army armor officer with combat experience in Iraq. He's also the author of Beyond Duty, a gritty war memoir that's well worth your time. Shannon has an insider edge on the Hood fallout, as he was treated in an office next to Hasan's (here's a link to a Dallas Morning News piece, hot off the wires, where Shannon is quoted extensively). Please join me in welcoming our newbie to the family -- all of us at OPFOR are very excited to have him.

Hasan’s violent action leaves one dumbfounded and near speechless over the tragedy that occurred at Ft Hood. But as we sift through the remains of that horrific day, my greatest concern moving forward is that his act could serve as a major step backward for the Army in its attempt to heal soldiers that are suffering and may need to seek the advice or counsel of the psychiatrists the Army provides.

Given that Hasan was a psychiatrist for the Army, his brutal actions are the greatest violation of trust between a doctor and patient. This may leave soldiers reluctant to be honest with their psychiatrists or counselors. Hasan’s primary job as a soldier and psychiatrist for the Army was to help soldiers heal, and his actions were in direct contrast with this. He has cast a cloud over all Army psychiatrists sincerely trying to build a legitimate trust with their patients. He has given pause to soldiers thinking about confessing their pains or seeking counsel. And that is something I feel is incredibly important, especially given my experiences with writing a memoir and confessing my own pains, and how that has helped me.

There is such an importance in soldiers being able to tell their stories, and they should tell their story. They should feel comfortable telling their story. What has happened here, I fear, will stop soldiers from reaching out, telling their story, and seeking any counsel they may need.

November 17, 2009 04:06 AM   Link    Army ~ Books ~ Iraq     Comments (8)     TrackBack (0)

An Interview with Peter Godwin

By John

Over at the esteemable Small Wars Journal, I sit down with lauded author Peter Godwin for a discussion on the COIN lessons-learned from the Rhodesian Bush War. Godwin was a patrolman with the British South Africa Police during the war, and later --as a war correspondent-- played a key role in exposing Robert Mugabe's brutal Matabeleland massacre. Head over to SMJ to read and discuss.

October 15, 2009 06:35 AM   Link    Books

Beyond Duty Released

By John

Beyond Duty.jpg
Few stories break the heart like Shannon Meehan and Roger Thompson's Iraq War memoir, Beyond Duty. Meehan, a 1st Cavalry Division tank commander and VMI graduate, may as well have titled it "heavy lies the crown," as Beyond Duty is the first book I've read that fully captures the crushing burden of combat leadership.

Meehan and Thompson (a professor of English at VMI), started writing the book after disaster struck -- Meehan, freshly promoted to acting company commander during an offensive into insurgent-infest Baquba, called in an airstrike which killed a house full of Iraqi civilians. Beyond Duty details that fateful day in the prologue, the rest of the story's arc rides wave after wave of hyper-realistic tension ultimately leading to Meehan's antagonizing decision -- send his men into the dragon's mouth and possible death, or safely negate a house full of unknown occupments with a precision guided airstrike.

I've read my share of Iraq and Afghanistan war memoirs, God knows there's plenty of them out there. This, however, is the first "under the helmet" account of the terrifying nature of MOUT operations that I've read. Further, Beyond Duty forces the audience to come to terms with the immense responsibility we place on kids who are often times fresh out of college. The decisions Meehan faced were terrifying, yet through those unforgiving experiences, the light of this wonderful generation of young men and women shone through. The tougher the fight became, the faster Meehan ascended into a strong, confident leader. The great tragedy of Beyond Duty --and indeed it is a tragic tale-- was that after an uninterrupted record of deeply admirable and virtuous leadership, one bad decision completely unraveled Meehan's confidence and demeanor. Indeed, the pain doesn't stop after the wound has healed.

Read Beyond Duty. Understand what we ask of these young men and women, the angry seas we ask them to navigate, the agonies of combat, and the crushing burdens of leadership.

Shannon and Roger will be on the Ed Morrissey Show at 4pm EST, Thursday 24 September. Our friends at WRKO Boston also have a must-listen interview up with Shannon and Roger, click through for the link.

Finally, I'm proud to say that Capt Shannon Meehan will be joining us here at OPFOR full time as a blogger. I expect that will happen when the buzz from Beyond Duty calms (and it's buzzing loudly, folks -- pass the word).

September 23, 2009 01:57 PM   Link    Army ~ Books ~ Counterinsurgency ~ Iraq ~ Leadership ~ Supporting the Troops ~ The Long War ~ VMI     Comments (6)     TrackBack (0)

Running the War in Iraq, by Major General Jim Molan

By Townie 76

Running the War in Iraq, by Major General Jim Molan, Australian Army Retired; 2008: Harper Collins Publishers; Sydney, Australia; ISBN: 9780732287818; ISBN10: 0732287812; 358 pages.
Some interesting links to about the book:

http://www.harpercollins.com.au/books/9780732287818/Running_the_War_in_Iraq/index.aspx

http://www.homepagedaily.com/Pages/article5542-is-australian-general-jim-molan-a-war-criminal.aspx

http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/letters/index.php/theaustralian/comments/the_facts_about_fallujah/desc#commentsmore

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May 25, 2009 07:13 AM   Link    Books ~ The Long War     Comments (31)     TrackBack (0)

Samuel P. Huntington; The Soldier and The State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations

By Townie 76

Samuel P. Huntington; The Soldier and The State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations; Cambridge, The Belknap Press of Harvard University; 1957

Several weeks ago, during my move to Northern Virginia, as I was separating my books into categories, I picked up the late Samuel P. Huntington, The Soldier and the State, I did so for two reasons, as he had just recently died I wanted to gander at his first work which had a decided impact on the United States Military and two because of some research I am doing, I thought he would be a good starting point. I first read this book while a Cadet at the Virginia Military Institute, and again while in graduate school, so my intent was only to scan particular chapters of the book. However, once I began reading, the genius of Huntington was once again evident to me, I have gone back and reread the entire book.

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April 9, 2009 11:05 AM   Link    Books ~ History ~ Leadership ~ Strategery     Comments (5)     TrackBack (0)

Excited about this...

By John

Though I can't figure out when it's supposed to release --

Friday Night Lights director Peter Berg writes, directs, and produces this true-life tale of survival set in Afghanistan and involving a Navy Seal whose entire squadron was killed in a Taliban ambush. Marcus Luttrell was a Navy Seal who led a team of soldiers into Afghanistan on a dangerous mission to kill a Taliban leader. One day, while preparing for their mission on the side of a mountain, the team was surprised to encounter an Afghan man, a farmer, and a young boy. Subsequently struggling with the decision whether to kill them and violate the military rules of engagement or to let them go and risk blowing their cover, the team took a vote and found themselves deadlocked at an even split. As the leader of the team, it was up to Luttrell to make the final call. Determining that the three were simple civilians, Luttrell made the call to release them. An hour later, his entire team was wiped out by dozens of heavily armed Taliban. When the smoke cleared, Luttrell was clinging to life -- the sole survivor of the brutal ambush. In the following days Luttrell would use his military experience to stay alive in a hostile landscape and avoid detection by the Taliban.

Peter Berg did an amazing job with The Kingdom, in that he refused to inject his opinion on US foreign policy during the film. Kept true to the story, which I admired. Plus, The Kingdom was just damn well done. If Berg handles Operation Red Wing with the same care and attention to detail that he's treated previous works, this film should kick a US Navy SEAL level of ass.

By the way, if you haven't read the book -- you should.

April 9, 2009 08:01 AM   Link    Afghanistan ~ Books ~ Hollywood ~ Navy ~ The Long War     Comments (11)     TrackBack (0)

The Unforgiving Minute

By John

UnforgivingMinute_L.jpg I'm not really one for book reviews. These days, with Amazon codifying this sort of unwieldy, cookie-cutter "how-to" form for dead tree appraisal, the whole process is just too much of a pain in the ass for me churn out quality copy.

With that said, I know what I like. I know how to express what I like. And -at the risk of sounding like a simpleton- I really liked Craig Mullaney's The Unforgiving Minute.

This is an extraordinarily scribed journey, the odyssey of an 18 year old as he navigates the perils of West Point, US Army Ranger School, Oxford, and eventually war torn Afghanistan -- and yes, as the book's title implies, the crusade does usher him into manhood. Beautifully written and deeply moving, TUM transcends basic autobiographical storytelling and becomes something more. As Mullaney finds his voice, most evident in his interactions with fellow West Point cadets and his soldiers, the story undergoes a profound metamorphosis, with Mullaney defying the traditional soldiering stereotypes and resurrecting a species long believed extinct: that of the warrior-poet (evident enough in the title, which invokes Kipling's legendary poem "If").

Like the great British war poets of the First World War, Mullaney doesn't glorify war or try to hide its ugly head. Instead, his writing ebbs and flows on a tide of brutal honesty and fierce self-determinism. He struggles with the awesome responsibility of leading men, slays his inner-demons (some of which, he admits, are of his own construction), and denies any inclination or temptation of self-glorification.

The Unforgiving Minute is the first real war autobiography of our time. In fact, as this long war begins to approach the decade mark, Mullaney may well have offered up the most important, thought provoking, and definitive book of the so-called 9/11 generation. By holding up the mirror and transcribing what Mullaney -the soldier- sees, so the audience also reflects on what a long, strange war its been.

You can listen to Military.com's podcast with Craig here.

Cross-posted at Defense Tech

March 30, 2009 06:53 PM   Link    Books     Comments (1)     TrackBack (2)

Currently Reading

By John

top secret war.jpg

It's out of print, so I handed over a walloping 75 bones for this sucker. Normally I'd just do the library thing, but TSW came at Lt Col P's suggestion and he hasn't steered me wrong yet. Plus I'm starting to develop an impressive little collection of books on Rhodesia and the Rhodesian Bush War. Don't ask me why I find Rhodesia so fascinating, occasionally a historical item of interest will reach out from the pages and grab me. In this case, I caught the bug hard.

Anyways, so far -- excellent. Some of the shit the Selous Scouts did curdles the blood. Highly recommend it, though you all may want to check out the local library for some sort of inter-library loan -- 75 bucks is an awful lot to shell out.

Click here for reviews.

January 19, 2009 01:02 PM   Link    Books     Comments (7)     TrackBack (0)

The Dark Side

By Townie 76

The subject is torture, the subject is imprisonment, the subject is our Constitution, the subject is how the United States squandered (my words not her words) the standing we had in the world after 9-11 by using techniques for obtaining information, which we in the past have condemned.

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October 30, 2008 05:08 AM   Link    Books     Comments (22)     TrackBack (0)

Touching History

By Pinch

Up for a good book this summer? if you pick up Touching History by airline pilot Lynn Spencer, you won't regret it and it'll be gone in a weekend, if you are anything like me.

It is the story of the skies over America on Sept 11, 2001. Spencer, an airline pilot for ExpressJet Airlines, spent much of the last few years interviewing the principles in this infamous day, from air traffic controllers in Boston and Washington and Indianapolis to militarycover_2.jpg controllers at the Fleet Area Surveillance Facility, Virginia Capes (FASFAC VACAPES, also known as Giantkiller, the controllers I talked to on nearly every F-14 hop out of Oceana), to the pilots themselves in 747 aircraft over the Pacific enroute to an unknown-to-them-at-the-time closed US airspace or in F-16 and F-15 fighters striving to make sense of this crazy day.

Spencer is an aviator and as such, the book is easily digested by those with “lifties” in their blood (lifties, for the uninitiated, are the little critters that run around the wing of an aircraft and make it fly). At the same time, however, those unfamiliar with the vernacular and the language of the sky will take very readily to this book since Spencer is meticulous at spelling out those pesky acronyms and translating the sometimes archaic and mystifying code spoken by those who fly.

This book shines a bright and needed light on the confusion of that day, from the controllers who can’t understand what is happening to the aircraft under their controlto the fighter pilots, launched on an alert but are vectored over the ocean because…how do you define a “mission” for something that has never, ever, ever happened before - as evidenced by this snippet of the conversation between lead Otis Air National Guard Base alert F-15 pilot Lt Col Tim “Duff” Duffy and the Weapons controller “Huntress” at NEADS (Northeast Air Defense Sector):

Okay, people are dying now, Duff thinks as he gapes at the smoke spewing from the burning towers. He instantly shifts into a combat mind-set.

“Huntress, Panta 4-5, say mission!” he impatiently calls to the Weapons controller at NEADS. “What do you want me to do next? What do you need from me right this second?”

“Uhhhhhhhhh….,” comes the hesitant response. The controller, staring up at the shocking CNN coverage, has no idea what to tell the fighters.

With no clear mission and no target information, Duff knows he has few options available. It would hardly be helpful or prudent to simply rocket into the crowded skies over Manhattan. he would be putting other aircraft in jeopardy. And what would he do? He has no authorization, just who is the enemy?

“Okay, tell you what,” he says, remaining calm and pulling his F-15 out of afterburner, bringing its speed down from supersonic, “we have Whiskey 105 reserved this morning,” referring to a military airspace training area over the Atlantic just south of Long Island. “How about we just jump in there and I’ll stay at the northwest corner so that we’re protected from airliners and out of your way. If you need us, we’re just 40 miles from the city.”

“Yeah, okay,” the bewildered Weapons controller responds, not knowing what else to tell them. “Go do that.”

Any sense of invincibility that the fighter pilots felt has turned to roiling feelings of anger, horrible frustration, and impotence. They glare at the smoke in the distance over Lower Manhattan, ready and willing but unable to do anything about it. His heart pounding, Duff takes a deep breath and reluctantly turns his F-15 away from the city.

Those of you who are familiar with my posts over on the Instapinch know I have an ongoing, running gun battle going on with some elements of the Moonbat Left, those lunatic moronic idiots who insist 9/11 was an “inside job” or that things like a military stand-down order was issued to keep the military from “doing its job” on that day. This book dispels those crazy notions - in fact it doesn’t just dispel them, it shatters them into a million minute pieces that can be crunched under the heel of a flight boot.

Lynn Spencer has done us all a wonderful duty here - she has captured the history of that day in a superb book, a history that we cannot and should not forget.

The book is available pretty much everywhere now. I picked up my copy from the local Borders, but you can order it online at Barnes and Noble, Simon and Schuster, and Amazon, among other book stores.

A nice bio of Lynn can be found here. Not your typical airline pilot, but she writes one hell of a book.

June 23, 2008 02:01 PM   Link    Books     Comments (5)     TrackBack (0)

The Echo of Battle

By John

Another outstanding book review from Colonel Hank Foresman USA (and a fine VMI man). Thanks Colonel!

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The Echo of Battle; The Army’s Way of War; By Brian McAllister Linn; Harvard University Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, 2007; 312 pages, with index and notes.

This is an important book for all professional Army Officers to read, contemplate, and discuss. This book is about how the military and particular the Army thinks of war. This book is a history of the Army, the development of its Operational Doctrine, and how doctrinal development has created complimentary and conflicting cultures with the Army. The author, Brian Linn, identifies the three cultures, which have shaped the ethos of the Army as being the Guardians, the Heroic, and the Manager.

There is old adage, that the Army prepares itself for the last war. The author, quotes General John Galvin, former SACEUR who stated, ‘When we think about the possibilities of conflict we tend to invent for ourselves a comfortable vision of war. . .a combat environment that is consistent and predictable. . .one that fits our plans, our assumptions, our hopes, and our preconceived ideas. We arrange in our minds a war we can comprehend on our own terms, usually with an enemy who looks like us and acts like us. This comfortable conceptualization becomes the accepted way of seeing things. . .until it comes under serious challenge as a result of some military event—usually a military disaster.’1

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May 26, 2008 08:42 PM   Link    Books     Comments (1)     TrackBack (0)

Weekend Reading

By John

Mike just sent me in a complimentary copy of his new book (thanks dude!), so I'll do a pseudo review regardless of the fact that I'm only about 60 pages deep.

Yon book.jpg

So far it's awesome, and I'm not saying that because Mike and I are buds. I much prefer the ground-up view of the War in Iraq to top-down analysis, though the big-picture guys are solid in their own right (see our man Richard). If you read his blog --and you should be-- you'll know already that's Mike's specialty. The guy has more time in theater than any reporter than I can think of, which would be ho-hum news if Mike couldn't write worth a shit, but he's so smooth and clear with his pen, the stories --like his blog posts-- jump off the pages.

The other thing that struck me as I was reading Moment of Truth. Americans need to know about warriors like LTC Erik Kurilla, CSGM Prosser, and the rest of the guys from Deuce Four. Their stories are remarkable, and I think that it's one of the great tragedies of this war that folks can't look past their own stupid opinions about the war long enough to learn of the exploits of men greater than themselves...greater than all of us, really.

I judge a book based on what I'll put off in order to keep reading, the old "can't put it down" test. Like I said, I've pounded through 60 pages since yesterday, so I'll let ya'll decide how much I'm enjoying it.

Buy here.

April 12, 2008 04:12 PM   Link    Books     Comments (2)     TrackBack (0)

Awesome Weekend Reading

By John

Mario Puzo's The Godfather.

Picked it up off of Amazon after A&E (or AMC? dunno) aired the trilogy. What a read! I know recommending The Godfather is about as cliché as suggesting Catcher in the Rye or some shit, but I've been surprised at how many folks are enormous fans of the films, but have never read the book.

Anyway, I couldn't put it down. Finished it while pulling two long, idle shifts Friday and Saturday. It's delightfully graphic, more so than the films, and focuses mostly on Don Corleone rather than Michael. I always felt that the Don was a more intriguing character than Michael, though I understand why Francis Ford Coppolla focused on Michael's story in the film. Sequel potential, unlikely hero, I get it.

Lots of great quotes that didn't make it to the screen as well. My favorite? After Michael's Sicilian wife is killed in a car-bombing, Michael contacts home and says "Tell my father that I'm ready to come home. Tell him I'm ready to be his son." The beautiful translation being: "I'm done fighting my destiny. I'm ready to become a Don."

So in related news, I plan on buying a BluRay DVD player, and I've decided that the Godfather Trilogy will be the first BluRay discs in my collection.

March 1, 2008 11:42 AM   Link    Books     Comments (7)     TrackBack (0)

On the nightstand

By John

history of the cia.jpg

I've still got a few pages left, so I'll stick with the nickel review. Fascinating, but frustrating. The first half of the book is story after story of CIA spooks getting their asses kicked by the KGB. What was it that Patton said? Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Appropriate. The history major in me was absolutely absorbed in the entrancing backstory of "the Company," but my flag-waving American side was just getting pissed. By the time I hit the Bay of Pigs, I had a pretty good idea of what it felt like to be an Arizona Cardinals fan.

That's no fault of the author's, mind you. Weiner admirably let his research do the talking, and refused to allow popular narratives to pollute what I found to be a laudably disinterested story.

I couldn't help but to think of that scene in The Matrix when I was hammering this post out. Neo and Morpheus, carrying on a conversation that would eventually lead to Neo expelling himself from the Matrix's artificial reality: Remember, all I'm offering you is the truth, nothing more.

Smart. In the movie, "the truth" sucked ass. Same thing with Legacy of Ashes. This book is smart, engrossing, and some quality history porn, but you might not like what you read.

Update Reader Jim Wise points to this damning review from the CIA, one that seriously belies my synopsis:

Tim Weiner’s Legacy of Ashes is not the definitive history of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that it purports to be. Nor is it the well researched work that many reviewers say it is. It is odd, in fact, that much of the hype surrounding the book concerns its alleged mastery of available sources. Weiner and his favorable reviewers—most, like Weiner, journalists—have cited the plethora of his sources as if the fact of their variety and number by themselves make the narrative impervious to criticism.

But the thing about scholarship is that one must use sources honestly, and one doesn’t get a pass on this even if he is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for the New York Times. Starting with a title that is based on a gross distortion of events, the book is a 600-page op-ed piece masquerading as serious history; it is the advocacy of a particularly dark point of view under the guise of scholarship. Weiner has allowed his agenda to drive his research and writing, which is, of course, exactly backwards.

History, fairly done, is all about context, motivations, and realistic expectations in addition to the accurate portrayal of events. Weiner is not honest about context, he is dismissive of motivations, his expectations for intelligence are almost cartoonish, and his book too often is factually unreliable. What could have been a serious historical critique illuminating the lessons of the past is undermined by dubious assertions, sweeping judgments based on too few examples, selective or outright misuse of citations, a drama-driven narrative, and a tendentious and nearly exclusive focus on failure that overlooks, downplays, or explains away significant successes.

The irony is that a new history of CIA is needed to fill the gap left by the now dated works of John Ranelagh (The Agency, 1986) and Christopher Andrew (For the President’s Eyes Only, 1995). Having read the book, I have to conclude that this is not it; anyone who wants a balanced perspective of CIA and its history should steer well clear of Legacy of Ashes.

There's more at the link. I'm starting to feel like kind of a jackass for calling this thing "laudably disinterested." Read the whole review.

February 2, 2008 10:26 AM   Link    Books     Comments (4)     TrackBack (0)