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April 18, 2006
The Making Of A Marine Officer
Last night I finished reading Nathaniel Fick's One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer. I've been in a bad habit of starting books and not finishing them; that was not a problem with this one.
Nate Fick retraces his journey from a civilian majoring in the classics at Dartmouth to Marine officer, through 9/11 and into Afghanistan--and that story is fascinating in and of itself. But the emotional crux comes with Frick's account of his leadership of his elite recon platoon in the initial assault on Iraq.
Fick keeps his account largely apolitical: it is clear he loves his country and honors its founding ideals. But he has very little to say about the larger political debates that shaped the war, and his neutral references to the President and Secretary of Defense illuminate his dedication to the idea of civilian control of our military.
By second half of the book I was impressed with the thoroughness of all the Marines' training; the author had convinced me that he and his unit were unsurpassed in the world in professionalism. And so it was curious that as I followed Fick and his recon platoon across Iraq, a sense of unease grew in my gut. I knew of course, from reading countless other war memoirs, that combat scrambles the best plans; that being on the receiving end of machine gun, mortar and artillery fire can stress even the best-trained individual; and that no one is perfect, neither the men under your command nor the officers above you, nor yourself. I found myself wondering that if an elite unit is dealing with questionable tactical planning and officers with dubious combat leadership, what's up with the rest of the military?
Nate is honest about his own mistakes as well as those of his superiors--and clearly lots of things went right instead of wrong. But by the time Fick got back to the States, I was sick of the confusion and tension--I was almost ready to let the Middle East consume itself in violence, without American involvement.
But in closing, Fick recounts his visit with a friend to the Antietam battlefield--and his posing of the question, "Was it a waste?"
"No," she replied. "They won, and Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. They freed the slaves, the way you freed Afghanistan." [...]Staring down at the water, I measured my words, running through a justification I'd given myself a thousand times before. The good was abstract. The good didn't feel as good as the bad felt bad. It wasn't the good that kept me up at night.
Fick comes to the conclusion that seems to be nearly universal among combat veterans: he loves his country, but ultimately he fought for his men.
I took sixty-five men to war and brought sixty-five home. I gave them everything I had. Together, we passed the test. Fear didn't beat us. I hope life improves for the people of Afghanistan and Iraq, but that's not why we did it. We fought for each other.
Maybe that's not the answer that will warm a neocon's heart, but that's not Lieutenant Fick's concern. His job was to accomplish his mission and fight his unit professionally and as humanely as possible. As I read somewhere, a Marine drill instructor said, "Let the other SOB die for his country, we want you alive!"
I'm sure there are other books that effectively convey the Iraq experience, but this one is a great place to start. Highly recommended.
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