Customer Reviews

Assignment Pentagon: The Insider's Guide to the Potomac Puzzle Palace (An AUSA book)

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2 star:		(1)
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As an Air Force Captain currently assigned to the Pentagon, I've found this book to be invaluable in understanding how the pieces fit together in the Puzzle Palace. I read it once before arriving and have re-read several sections during my tenure in the Pentagon. I anxiously await Gen. Smith's next update.

Assignment Pentagon: An fascinating, almost voyeuristic, look into the world behind those five-sided walls, this book is invaluable for officers newly posted to ground zero of the DoD bureaucracy. I read it as a college student studying international relations and the formulation of U.S. foreign/defense policy and found it essential for understanding the unique culture that operates at the Department of Defense. Anyone who wants to understand how the world's largest office building, and the bureaucracy it supports, really works should read this book. Its lessons and observations are applicable to most corporate environment, and I could easily see Assignment Pentagon, or some adaptation thereof, becoming the "Art of War" of the next decade.

If you ever wondered about what it is like to work inside the Pentagon, or what it takes to work on a high level staff, then this book is for you. Although primarily written for Pentagon staffers, this book applies to all staffers at all levels of the military and civilian/private sector. Not a whole lot of theory, just a lot of good, first-hand experience and common sense. This book helped me in previous assignments, and now I refer to it often while assigned to the Pentagon.

A commonsense approach to the workings and guidebook of the Pentagon.

I own the book. I work in the P. I read the book prior to my 1st assignment here. It is quite helpful not only for Action Officers, but as first time supervisors as well. There are a number of issues that, to those quick on the uptake, are recognizable key morsels indeed. For example, how important it is to understand the pace of change and how to adjust to same. When I had to develop my first briefing, I remembered what the book said about being able to whittle things down to a minute of time (in terms of focus, and in case that is all I'd have if the Boss had to leave suddenly--this did happen on my third briefing).

There is a book "Pentagon for Dummies." It has a different perspective and flavor. It has lots of general info. Between the two, I'd get Assignment Pentagon if I were to get only one. Not sure where ol' Mr Frantz has been, but CT ain't the Pentagon.

This is a book not about the Pentagon but about working for the pentagon and might be of interest to two kinds of people: those who work in the military and those who work in business. Both should avoid it.

If you work in the military consider this: following the list of recommended books is a note that you SHOULD read some more books on the list because this book isn't enough. That is not a good sign! Also, this edition is copyright 1993 but appears to have been written a few years earlier and the information is becoming dated.

If you aren't working in the military then too much of the material is too limited occupationally and geographically. While the note on the interview process at the Pentagon might be helpful to others facing tough interviews there isn't enough of it. And while there is some basic material that could be considered applicable to general business it is mixed with too much that is specific to the security focused and overly structured military.