Nathaniel Fick

Many people go to war. Many people write books. Only a few people go to war and write books about it, and among those books, One Bullet Away is a masterpiece. Insightful, well-crafted, bring into focus the mind and soul of a modern warrior, and the endless screw-ups of war. This book is probably the best way to get a sense of the Marines, short of joining up.

Nathan Fick takes us from OCS in the peaceful days of 1998, through the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. In the process, he discuss show more the energy and discipline need to impose order on chaos of battle, lead men to victory, and bring them all home. At the same time, no matter how professional a leader is, they can't account for the stupidity of their superiors, the human limitations of their men, or the fatal lottery of combat.

The primary lesson every Marine Lieutenant learns is "If you fuck up, your men die." Too bad that somewhere between bars and stars, that lesson is lost. show less

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 show more 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. show less

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 show more 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. show less

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 show more 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. show less