Customer Reviews

In the Company of Soldiers: A Chronicle of Combat

5 star:		(16)
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2 star:		(15)
1 star:		(20)

 

 

The title of the book fooled me, instead of the grunts on the ground and in the tanks, this book follows the commander of the 101st airborne, General Petraeus. Of course, generals are "soldiers" too, but the title is deceiving. The few comments from the common soldier are overheard in the chow hall or in the toilet line.

Atkinson is a great writer and was given unprecedented access to key leaders. He's in the command tent, flying around in the command helicopter, and sleeping in tents with other generals on the staff. The access did not taint Atkinson's coverage, as he doesn't pull any punches in his critique of the generals.

The book has 3 basic phases:
1. The build-up. The 101st airborne had to move from base to an airbase and across to Kuwait, and then had the agonizing wait for their equipment to arrive by sea. At times, despite Atkinson's great storytelling ability, this section drags, as he likely had lots of time to write but little of interest to write about. In every chapter, Atkinson weaves in his political perspective, which can get annoying.
2. The early drive/fly in. The 101st moves quickly to its bases deep inside Iraq, and everything goes well for a while. Unfortunately, at least for the story, the 101st is left out of most of the action, due to weather/wind and a setback by another helicopter unit that gets badly shot-up. However, the book picks up the pace, as Atkinson drops the political commentary and tells it like it was, with no hindsight. The generals are concerned that the war could last for months and question the usefulness of attack helicopters.
3. The attack towards Baghdad. The action picks up as the 101st is involved in clearing some towns, and there are interesting accounts of combined arms to clear streets without damaging historic monuments or injuring civilians. However, there is little explanation of how the general moved from "this could last for months" to being over in weeks. As in the first section, the political commentary appears again.

Overall, the book provides a fresh perspective from a few key generals without hindsight. However, the book is not up to Atkinson's lofty standard set by "An Army at Dawn". There are plenty of cliches, such as what the soldiers carried into battle. Even more annoying than the political commentary is the listing of the daily challenge/password, he must have mentioned at least 15. In the end, Atkinson's storytelling and access make the book worthwhile, but other books like "The March Up" provides a better feel for combat with the "soldiers" on the ground.

No matter what your feelings are about the Iraq war, there's no doubt that the men who were on the ground (and still are, for the most part) conducted themselves with great elan. Rick Atkinson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of AN ARMY AT DAWN, took a break from writing the second book of the series to spend time with the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq, embedded for the Washington Post. His new book, IN THE COMPANY OF SOLDIERS, chronicles his time with the division. While I found it an interesting book, I feel that it doesn't give what is promised. Along with that, Atkinson periodically throws out some personal opinions in the middle of his reporting that I thought didn't go with the aim of the book (the story of a division in combat).

Atkinson has shown that he is a great writer who can really put the reader at the center of the action. He doesn't pull any punches in this book either, vividly describing the dust and the blowing sand that literally covers everything. You can almost feel your own voice get raspy along with the soldiers as if you also suffer from the "Kuwait crud." Atkinson spent most of his time with General Patraeus, commander of the division, which allows him to show us all of the briefings and strategy sessions each day. He gives us a great picture of Patraeus, who is facing his first combat command, showing us his uncertainty and determination. When the first problems hit (mainly the weather, but also unforeseen Iraqi resistance, he begins to wonder at the estimate that this will be a quick war. We also see his exhilaration when Iraqi resistance collapses after a couple of weeks of hard fighting.

As good a job as Atkinson does in his portrait of Patraeus, it brings up the main problem with IN THE COMPANY OF SOLDIERS. It spends too much time with the higher-ups and not enough time with the men in the field. I understand that Atkinson had no real choice who he was embedded with, and that if he had been placed with the front-line troops, this book would have been about them. However, the title (IN THE COMPANY OF SOLDIERS) and the description of the book makes it out to be much more "on the ground" then it ends up being. Most of the time the war is told through a series of reports. It's interesting to see the agonizing in the control tent, but we don't get much of a feel for the men themselves. During the lead-up to the battle, we do get a bit more of this, but even then the book is lacking input from the men "down in the trenches." We hear of the logistical problems faced by trying to get the division ready for battle at much too short notice, but we feel removed even from those as we hear how they affected Atkinson and the commanders more than how they affected the men. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it isn't what I was sold when I saw it at the bookstore.

The value of the book is hearing some of the internal military opinions of what is going on, especially some of their thought processes as they are told some monumentally stupid things (like the fact that they'll be out of Iraq within 6 months). While much of the action in the book simply seems like a retread of newspaper articles during the war itself, it's this behind the scenes stuff that was neat. We hear about the logistics of helicopter rotor-blades and (potentially deadly) discussion of whether to use paint or tape to cover the ends in order to protect from the gritty sand. This is the kind of detail I loved about the book, and Atkinson does a good job of covering it all. We hear the soldiers' views on the whole thing, which is the usual cynical outlook that allows men to handle this sort of situation. No matter what they're feelings are about their circumstances, they are all determined to do their jobs to the best of their abilities.

This brings up my other small problem with the book. It is very easy to see that Atkinson was against this war. Every once in a while, he inserts his opinion into the narrative, either with a side remark or a few paragraphs of lecture. His Afterword is more of the same, written in January 2004 with a lot of hindsight. Some of his feeling in this section is understandable, because while only two 101st men died in the war itself, a great number of men who he had come to know (at least to have spoken to once or twice) have died since he left Iraq. He thinks it has all been for nothing. While the Afterword is acceptable to me, I felt that his editorial comments in the middle of the book were uncalled for. He is writing the story of this division in the battle for Iraq. He is not writing a history of the war itself. He is not writing a treatise about whether or not this war was a good thing. He's writing about men in battle. It's fine if he's reporting the feelings of the soldiers, but I felt that his comments again went against the spirit of the book that I was led to believe this was. I have nothing against what he said (whether or not I agree with them), but I don't think he chose the proper venue. Many books have been (and will be) written on the subject of whether or not this war was a good one. This was not such a book.

Overall, I did enjoy reading IN THE COMPANY OF SOLDIERS. I enjoyed reading the background to the war, something that I hadn't read before. I just wish that it had been what it advertised.

David Roy

If you are a military history buff, you will love this book. If not, it might be the right time to take a plunge into the subject. This account of military history is about Operation Iraqi Freedom. While justifications for the recent war between the American-British coalition forces and Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime are still being debated among politicos and the general public, the facts are that it did occur, American and British soldiers died and were wounded, a brutal dictator was toppled, and we watched the whole event play itself out on live television. Now the Iraqi people have been given the opportunity to rebuild a country in their own image and likeness.

Rick Atkinson, a former staff writer and senior editor at The Washington Post and a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author, has written a journal of his experiences in the Iraqi conflict, beginning on the morning of February 26, 2003 at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, home of the famous "Screaming Eagles," the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army. After a couple of days of orientation, Atkinson and dozens of other journalists were flown to the Middle East. Thereafter, he lived with the 101st Airborne Division from their preparations in Kuwait to the occupation of Baghdad -- a period of almost two months -- and was granted complete access to the commanders and troops.

"In the Company of Soldiers" is Atkinson's very up-close and personal story of the war, in which he details every aspect of the conflict from planning and debriefings with the commanders, to his accounts of the battles the soldiers fought, to his sometimes intimate stories about the soldiers involved. It is an eyewitness account, occasionally laced with sadness and disappointment, occasionally with joy and pride. But more than that, it is also the story of one man, Major General David H. Petraeus, commander of the 101st Airborne Division, a modern warrior who was described once by a colleague as "the most competitive man on the planet."

The author spent much of his time in Iraq alongside Petraeus, who finished near the top of his 1974 class at West Point, and was known then as a "striver to the max." No ordinary soldier by any means, Petraeus had received a doctorate in international relations from Princeton University and for twenty-five years had been through various command and staff assignments, including tours in Haiti and Bosnia. Now he was commanding the "Screaming Eagles," a force of 17,000 troops, in a war in a forlorn and desolate desert environment, testing both his physical and mental skills. Atkinson, sitting in on the daily briefings as the division's attacks were planned, watches as Petraeus wrestles with numerous tactical enigmas and observes as the general instructs, motivates, and leads his soldiers and subordinate commanders in several intense engagements.

While describing this stressful and anxious journey into and during war, Atkinson introduces the reader to many other heroes of the combat, from Lt. General William Wallace, commander of V Corps, to Brig. Generals Ben Freakley and Edward Sinclair, assistant division commanders respectively for operations and support, Col. Mike Linnington of the 3rd Brigade, a number of CWOs who pilot the helicopters used in the battles, and, of course, that ordinary brave soldier on the ground whose job it is to do the job and often be irreverent when speaking about it. Our nation should be proud of them.

Even though I was on a deadline to complete another project, I read the entire book in two days because I had difficulty putting it aside. This is a firsthand account of war. It is a vivid picture of a remarkable group of soldiers and commanders. It reads more like a suspense novel than a nonfiction work narrating actual events. Atkinson's writing-style is what I call "facile and friendly," that is, easy on the eye and the mind, so much so that the story stays in the forefront rather than the sentence structure. And yet the details he provides are worthy of a scholarly work. In fact, the writing is so well done it's like a "motion picture in the mind," something I don't say about many books.

There are other things I really like about the book besides the writing style. One is the presentation of two maps at the front of the book (The Iraqi Battleground and Route of the 101st Airborne Division) which allows the reader to follow the movements of the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq; the maps are particularly helpful for those of us unfamiliar with the geography of that part of the world. I found myself constantly referring to them as the story unfolded, in fact so much so that I finally put a paper clip on the page so I could access them faster. Also valuable are the schematic which helps to identify the command structure of V Corps and the glossary of military jargon. Without the latter, I wouldn't have known an OGA from a DCU from an ASR. Still another plus is that the index of topics is very detailed.

I highly recommend this book to you whether you are interested in military history or not. You will not be disappointed. This is still ongoing history and a knowledge of how we got to this point in the situation seems to me to be important. Many of us watched this story unfold on television. Now we have the chance to read the book. True, this is the reverse of the usual situation -- read the book, then see the movie -- but television coverage, in retrospect, did not really provide us with the up-close and personal experience that Rick Atkinson provides us in this superbly written account of a most significant contemporary military conflict.

Atkinson's book is far more about his experience as an embedded reporter than a work of military history. There is virtually no discussion of tactics, and his contact was limited mostly to the division commander and his staff, with little input from the soldiers on the point of the spear. This book does not approach the standard of An Army At Dawn.

By contrast, The March Up explains how the Marines actually fought the Iraqis, and is more about the Marine infantrymen than about the author or the brass.

I agree with the reviewer who said this is more aptly titled, "In the Company of Generals," though I would add "and Colonels." Unlike Thunder Run or The March Up, few battles are narrated from the perspective of the soldier actually doing the fighting. This is not a criticism of the book, just a notice to the prospective reader. What Atkinson does well is write about the Commanders of the 101st Airborne, and their travels, travels, and accomplishments from preparing for war through the Gulf War itself.

The sheer logistical nightmare of preparing for a war thousands of miles from one's base is captured in the big picture and through anecdotes, such as the vigorous disagreement about whether to tape or paint helicopter blades to protect them from the sand. After heated discussion and much agonizing, it was discovered there was no tape. Paint would have to suffice. By spending time with the Commanding General of the 101, as well as his logistics and other officers, Atkinson does an excellent job of conveying the size of the logistical challenge faced by the 101st (and, no doubt, other U.S. divisions) and the magnitude of the accomplishment in meeting it.

As the war itself unfolds, Atkinson does a decent job of helping us understand how the 101st' mission changes to meet the realities of combat. The reader may be (as I was) distracted by continuous petty attacks on President Bush, Secretary Rumsfeld, and even Fox News. They are so ancillary to his point that they serve no purpose other to offend, or at the very least distract. Though Atkinson may try to place them in a bigger context, it's pretty transparent he is searching for his own voice among the facts at his disposal (like when he singles out a negative comment written in a bathroom stall about President Bush as somehow representative of troop morale and opinions on the war).

Overall, an excellent discussion about preparing for war, a good discussion of the 101st' role in that war as seen from its Commanders, but distracting and petty political potshots taken throughout.

I've read other books by Atkinson, which were great. This one though well written from an English literature point of view, is BORING. Sorry. I read the whole thing waiting to get really interested, but it never happened. Following the Divisional HQ around isn't much different than reading about corporate america. Not why I read military oriented books. Look at others. Too many other great books out there to read. Pick wisely; not this.

I gave this book only two stars. Don't get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with the book per se. Atkinson is an excellent journalist and a competent Military Historian, with impressive credentials. I was disappointed because I bought the book thinking I was going to read the equivalent of Mark Bowden's BLack Hawk Down, taking place this time on an Iraqi scenario. After all, the sub-title of In The Company of Soldiers is: A Chronicle of Combat. And that it is, except at a strategical level. The book devotes many pages to describe generals' personalities and military operations at large. I found very little devoted to the grunts' EXPERIENCE of actual combat. The book does not smell like gun-powder, but of desert sand and of the uncomfortable life and maddening frustrations (I loved that quote "Embrace the suck") of the 101's camp life and logistics.
In conclusion, I wish the book would have devoted the same amount of pages to the tactical aspect of combat (patrols, convoys, fire fights) than it did to a larger than life figure, General Petraeus, the awesome Commander of the 101st.

Rick Atkinson has two Pulitzers on his desk, and three bestselling books of military history (prior to this one) on his desk, so it was interesting to see what he would do and who he would write about in this book. Given that the author is currently writing a book on World War II, it shouldn't come as a surprise to many readers that his book on the Iraq War, this time, would concentrate on a division commander and his immediate subordinates. The author's obviously using this experience to learn something about how the subjects of his World War II book dealt with the issues involved in combatting the Germans.

Atkinson wound up with the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), a storied formation that fought in Normandy, Holland, and most famously the Battle of the Bulge, where it was surrounded and the temporary division commander famously replied to a German surrender demand by saying "Nuts." The current commander is a fitness fanatic named David Petraeus, who has a degree in international relations, a razor-sharp intellect, and zero tolerance for mistakes by subordinates. Atkinson follows him around during the first several weeks of the war, observing how he runs his division, how they fight, and what they're intending to do at any particular time.

The result is a mishmash of interesting and mundane things, with a great deal of personal experience thrown in. Atkinson repeatedly loses personal items (he seems to particularly have difficulties with his gasmask and kit, important in a war in which it's assumed the enemy will use chemicals), spends a lot of time talking with various soldiers, and describes the living conditions they endured during the campaign. This leads to a number of priceless anecdotes: the soldiers unloading a truck while singing "Take this job and shove it"; the National Guardsman who has a rather humorous and critical view of the advertising slogan of the organization he belongs to; one of Petraeus' brigade commanders telling Atkinson that he's had enough of the division commander's jogging, and he'll see him on the basketball court, instead; everyone at one point covered in mud during a sandstorm into which rain falls. This is the best part of the book, and it illuminates the campaign and the setbacks the army suffered during the early stages.

The politics are what you'd expect from a Washington Post reporter, but they're not central to the narrative, and are presented almost as asides, apart from the main plot. Bush of course lied to the public, and tricked everyone into going to war (as Jay Leno pointed out the other night, if Bush is so stupid, and he tricked the Democrats into voting for the war, what does that say about *their* intelligence?) and Rumsfeld compounded things by trying to fight the war "on the cheap" without committing the proper forces to win it quickly (though they did anyway). Atkinson gives credit to the men on the ground for pulling out the situation when the forces were spread pretty thin, but it reality things were never that close anyway: the Iraqi army melted into oblivion without much of a fight.

This paperback edition has a brief afterword covering the period since the publication of the hardback. The author continues his trend of disparaging those who committed the troops to war, while honoring those who serve.

This is an interesting book for its view of the role of a division commander, his duties, the difficulties involved in his job, and of course the character of the particular leader examined here. You do have to discount the politics involved, but since they're peripheral to the main subject of the book it shouldn't be too hard to ignore them.

While many people expect a book written about a war topic to be an academic tome that discusses dry things like tactics, or to be a post-war propaganda piece, this book is neither. Where this book is strong is in its human side--we see the people in the war, not the war with people in it.

The writing is strong, and the book maintains a fast pace. It's entertaining, because it looks at the situation and the people involved. At times, you can almost feel the desert sand in your teeth.

Atkinson adds wit to observation, and provides us with an insider's view of the 101st Airborne Division of the US Army during its mission in Iraq. While Major General (two-star) Petraeus is de facto the star of the book (and he's pretty much a force of nature in his own right), Atkinson skillfully gives others--both above and below Petraeus in command--a voice. There are no cardboard caricatures and no bit players. It's not a book about a general or handful of officers commanding legions of storm troopers or faceless soldiers. Everyone is important. Atkinson shows this with distinctly personal quotes--sometimes hilarious ones--from people at all levels in the 101st.

We get into the spirit of the 101st, pick up the lingo, and learn a significant amount about the military very early--and very easily--in the book. I like that.

This book doesn't begin with tanks clanking across the terrain or with pilots heading off toward the enemy strongpoints. It begins in a Shoney's parking lot in Hopkinsville, KY. From there, it goes to Fort Campbell, KY. The real saga of any military campaign begins in such places, and this is something Atkins shows in a clear and entertaining way. And it is here we begin to see the staggering importance of logistics. We later see how mistake in logistics created problems for Petraeus and others in the 101st, and how they made tough choices because of those problems.

This book held two surprises for me.

First, anyone who grew up in the Vietnam Era and/or watched episodes of Air Wolf (Ernest Borgnine, Jan Michael Vincent) or Tour of Duty has this idea that the helicopter is an awesome weapon of war and the symbol of American power on the battlefield. This is apparently what American planners at the highest level thought at the beginning of the the Iraqi War. The reality is quite different. But, Atkinson doesn't spout an armchair general opinion as though he's some kind of expert. He lets us see this through the eyes of General Petraeus, the pilots, Lieutenant General (three star) Wallace, and others. These are people who assessed the first--and ill-fated--Apache assault mission (not flown by the 101st, but by a different company) and developed a very different way of deploying helicopters. A way that proved to work very well. It's this kind of inside view that makes this book so fascinating.

I got my second surprise when I came upon the many captioned photos at the center of the book. These put faces with the names and added depth to an already enjoyable book.

Unfortunately, there's a fly in the ointment. Atkinson included leftist political remarks that simply fell short of the caliber of the rest of the book, and I found this jarring. It's as if Atkinson wants the reader to know he's a product of the liberal left and oblivious to the mainstream point of view. I hope a future edition has this editorializing edited out. Yet, I still enjoyed the book. I would have enjoyed it more if the author had focused on telling the story. It was a good story. In fact, it was an excellent story. I would sum it up in two words: "Air Assault!" Read the book and you'll know what that means.

An incredibly readable and fluid account of the Screaming Eagles' trek to war. Atkinson put you there on the ground, describing the action, moods, tactics, and drama in vivid and poetic detail.
Without dumbing down his writing, Atkinson deftly introduces the military to lay people in a "The Army for Dummies" format, without overusing the particular jargon, slang and lingo only soldiers would understand.
This is a keen view from the top, with MG Petraeus playing the starring role in a decidely un-general officer-like manner, undistilled and full of candor. From the perspective of the division commander, we get an atypical view of war: from the middle managers who must put our men in the path of harm.
It is this particular aspect which is somewhat unpredicted given the title. The title suggests a "troop level" perspective while Atkinson stays primarily with the division commander, his deputies, and the brigade commanders which provides a limited, albeit rare, view of light infantry combat. Instead it gives us a glimpse of the challenges and highlights of putting a 10,000 man division to war.
The only other distraction is the author's political views which appear sporadically. Maybe we shouldn't be surprised given his place of employment, but Atkinson's criticism of the Bush administration are typically without a bigger context and these snipings don't seem to serve any purpose than to let us know which side of the voting line he lies.
Regardless, an accomplished work that will impress the soldier and citizen alike.