One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer (2005)

Outstanding memoir by a young Marine lieutentant who led a platoon in Afghanistan and Iraq. Vivid, thoughtful and provocative. ( )

http://www.andalittlewine.blogspot.com/2012/08/book-review-one-bullet-away-by.ht...

In his memoir One Bullet Away, Nate Fick shares his story of joining the Marine Corps as an officer, and deploying just before the September 11th terrorist attacks.

Fick's story, told in ways that are both too glib and too frank, confuses the hell out of me.

I understand the call to serve. I understand the frustration that clearly mounts as he is thrust into war zones, in Afghanistan and again in Iraq, that his training did not fully prepare him for by commanders more interested in jockeying for promotion than in the safety of Fick's platoon.

But I don't understand who Fick was writing for. Who does he think will love his book?

Fick starts off with a glorification of war, of the Marines, of martial life that is, to me, off-putting. "The grunt life was untainted," he writes. "Being a Marine... was a rite of passage in a society becoming so soft and homogenized that the very concept was often sneered at." I could spend all day trying to unpack what Fick means by "soft," but I think the quote shares the flavor of the opening chapters, and the hard-soft motif resurfaces throughout the memoir's nearly 400 pages.

Fick handles death lightly. All of his platoon members survive his tour in Iraq, though some are wounded or killed later. The people who die are enemies, othered, and largely nondescript. Threats among the Marines to kill each other if they screw up, as Fick does when one of his men offers to blow an undetonated bomb, are common. But the story lacks the grittiness, the nastiness of military memoirs that have lately been turned into successful movies.

But as much as Fick loves the Marines, his platoon, his life as a soldier, he ultimately leaves the Corps because of its seemingly mindless bureaucracy. He leaves because he can't imagine putting himself back in harms way if he is surrounded by the kind of people he served his first Iraq deployment with- the idiots who drive down every road with guns blazing, endangering allies and civilians, or the ladder climbing fools who want to call in air support strikes simply become another company had called one earlier. So the book is not written, I think, for the military enthusiast.

Fick makes a compelling case for the re-assessment of American readiness. "I was noticing a trend in my career: train to lead a rifle platoon, but get a weapons platoon; train to raid the coastline in rubber boats, but go to war in a landlocked country; train to jump into patrols via parachute, but use boots or Humvees in the real world." Fick chooses to see this train for Plan A, fight with Plan B as "a tribute to flexibility," but given the dysfunction evident throughout his dealings with military command, it smacks of mismanagement. ( )

In sharp contrast to Buzzell’s Gen X rock and roll version of war, Fick is a red blooded dude who joined the Marine Corps so he could struggle his way into the toughest jobs inside an already tough organization. This is red meat for those who served, and well-written enough to carry along everyone else. The story covers Fick’s training, and takes the reader through the early days of the March 2003 invasion. Elements of distrust, signs of poor leadership and acts of laziness that cause Fick to question the value of what he was doing at times read better knowing how hard it was for the author to admit the ideals he ascribed to his organization were not always upheld by all of its members.

(posted on my blog: davenichols.net)

US Marine Corps officer Nathaniel Fick's memoir describes his experiences in Marine Corps OCS, the War in Afghanistan, and the Iraq War. As a Lieutenant, Fick was a lower-grade officer who saw a great deal of front line action, especially while commanding a platoon in Bravo Company, First Force Recon as part of the tip of the spear during the invasion of Iraq in 2003. His memoir is very well written and provides a key insight into the positives and negatives of fighting wars within the Marine Corps command chain.

Fick decided to join the Marines in order to test himself, and enlists in OCS prior to his senior year at Columbia. After completing his training, he finished school before officially joining the Corps and heading off for training which included a variety of tough tests, including SERE training.

Fick was shipping off for his first international deployment when September 11 took place, and while at sea, his unit got orders to prepare for the invasion of Afghanistan. He took part in a few missions in that theater before being offered a chance to join the elite Recon Marines.

As part of First Force Recon, Fick led his platoon across the berms and into Iraq during the invasion, and was often involved in heavy firefights. Fick, an intelligent and tactically-aware commander, often chaffed under the rigid Marine Corps command structure and openly challenged his CO a couple of times when the orders were clearly wrongheaded. His attitude was not necessarily acceptable to his commanders, and once or twice nearly caused him to be punished, but his men knew they had a strong leader looking out for them and ensuring their ability to accomplish the mission was never compromised.

Fick's insights into the early days of the way, and especially the ways in which the strategies played out, open a unique view of the seeds planted which later turned into a full-blown insurgency. An easy read from start-to-finish, One Bullet Away is a solid addition to the shelves of any military reader, along with Generation Kill, journalist Evan Wright's book (and HBO miniseries) which saw Wright embedded in Fick's platoon. Four stars. ( )

After being introduced to Fick via Generation Kill and being quite intrigued by this earnest young officer, it was interesting to explore his experiences is this detail and depth. His romanticisation of bygone eras of military greatness adds an interesting element to his tale, settling it in a clear framework of challenge, honour and comradeship that he struggles (although usually succeeds) in maintaining throughout each of his missions. His candour throughout is wonderful - to admit to fears and tears and frustrations requires as much courage as war itself (although his image of big burly marines getting all squeamish about deadly creatures in Australia simply made me laugh). Fick is an engaging and intelligent writer - I want to criticise him for a few platitudes, cliches and general naivete but even this old cynic ultimately found his earnestness a little disarming. Ultimately, this is an interesting account of a young officer's experiences that asks its reader to think about some of the challenges and complexities of contemporary warfare and military culture. ( )