Customer Reviews

God's Children

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I have read and thoroughly enjoyed all of Coyle's modern warfare novels, including this, his latest one. I really enjoy the character development on all his books. Coyle makes them come alive and makes you care about whether or not they survive. Although not as long as some of his earlier works, God's Children was still a very good read. That said, however, I felt that there was something missing, perhaps a book unwritten? God's Children brings out the next generation of soldiers, building upon the characters begun in Sword Point through Code of Honor. The protagonist, Nathan Dixon, is obviously Scott Dixon's son. But what happened to the rest of the ensemble? Is Scott Dixon still on active duty? We know that Harold Cerro died in Code of Honor (bummer! I hated that part!) and there are references to Nancy Kozak's promotion to Lt Col and continued success as a combat officer. But Nathan Dixon bursts upon the scene as an experienced 1st LT, with references woven into God's Children of his previous success as a platoon leader, presumably in Nancy Kozak's battalion. But what happened? Where is the intervening book? I want to know! God's Children, while not quite as good as The 10,000, is a great way to pass the travel time on a boring business trip, but I really wnat to see the book between Code of Honor and God's Children.

Coyle heads down a great path, but doesn't quite get there. Myfirst platoon happened to be 2nd platoon, Co B, 2nd Battalion, 13thInfantry, so I enjoyed the "fictional" unit designation. And Coyle does get some things right...the worries of a 2LT taking his first platoon; the tension between the 2LT and the 1LT, especially one from the S3; and the S3 itself (I spent some time there too, and he's right on.) However, the ending is atrocious. Many years ago I read an article in the National Lampoon entitled, "How to Write Good". It suggested that if you get tired of writing, and don't know how to end, just write, "Suddenly, everyone was run over by a truck", and be done with it. Coyle pretty much does that here. It's too bad. Fleshed out properly it could have been a GREAT read, instead of just a good one.

Normally Harold Coyle is such a good read it is hard to put the book down. As a serving military officer, I was looking forward to the subject matter of this book for several months. In my opinion the book fell short of my expectations for an author of his caliber. I got the feeling that the book was written as a labor of love for the first 150 pages and then was shelved for a period of time before it had to be finished in a hurry. Readers need to know up front that the book will fall short of expectations in the end. The book even had some editing and proofing errors that are not normally seen in his work. Normally Harold Coyle's books exceptionally balances the drama of fiction with military realism to a very high degree. This one lost out to drama in a several ways. I will continue to look forward to his next effort, but I will not jump as quickly to buy it as I did this one.

This is, without question, the best book I've read about what it is really like to take command of one's first platoon. To my way of thinking, reading this, more than any other "how to be a General/Admiral" reading assignment, ought to be required of all cadets at all academies.

Who cares what Dixon was doing in Idaho? Though avid readers of Coyle ought to know.

What happened to the Hungarians? Who cares? It's NOT THE POINT OF THE BOOK!

Where did the rescue come from? Give me a break! From where it always does -- from others in the unit who care about never leaving buddies in the field.

"GOD'S CHILDREN" ends abruptly. It doesn't have a nice, neat, sewn-up ending. But that's the way most patrols end. Most of the time the troops live; sometimes some die. When it's over, it's just over. Time to do the scut maintenance work. Hats off to Harold Coyle for accurately capturing the post-action letdown and recreating it in the readers gut.

Let's look at the good portrayals in this book:

= The male/female relationship between officers. Hey, it happens in today's Army. This book captured the feel of what it's like to be young and "in charge" better than any I've read.

= The disconnect between training and real life. Wow!

= The (negative) impact our current civilian leaders are having on morale on today's military, and how the civilian government's "don't screw up" attitude is pervading all ranks.

= What it's really like to be on the sharp end of fuzzy headed missions thought up by fuzzy headed politicians and lead by fuzzy headed careerist senior officers beholden to those fuzzy headed politicians.

Well done, Harold Coyle.

Harold Coyle has written an excellent work on what it means tobe a small unit leader. More importantly, he has written an excellent primer on what it means to be a leader, period. This book has other notable features, too. Coyle does an outstanding job of keeping the Dixon military lineage alive and I noticed with some enjoyment that 1LT Nathan Dixon didn't stray too far from the family fold. Instead of attending West Point, he followed in his father's footsteps and attended VMI. He did deviate however, when he failed to follow his father into Armor branch, instead opting for the Infantry.

As anyone who has ever served in the Army knows, the Infantry is where the American GI meets the enemy "up close and personal." The Army 11B is the tip of the spear, the enforcer of all those foreign policy decisions made by men like Bill Clinton who didn't have the intestinal fortitude and moral fiber to do the job when they were called upon.

Coyle does a great job describing the fears, doubts, hopes and apsirations of the small mech infantry platoon that becomes a "lost patrol" forced to survive in Indian country while performing a mission they weren't trained for for an uncaring and hostile populace. This is the peacetime army. This is the military that Slick Willie loathes. This is the Army where the sons of affluent fathers no longer serve. This is the Army where the infantry is now populated by kids trying to escape the barrio and the gangs. This is the United States Army that is becoming increasingly more separate from the society it is sworn to defend. This is the U.S. Army of the 21st century, the very same one that the American people and their politicians choose to ignore because it reminds them of too many negative possibilities.

In this novel, which was surprisingly short for Harold Coyle, the author captures all of the little things that make infantry service so unmistakable. It has all of the little features that people who have never humped a "ruck" would never even think about. There are the foot inspections by officers and NCOs, the worries about food, shelter, dry clothes and whether this small, isolated unit will ever rejoin its higher headquarters. Coyle doesn't miss a thing and he doesn't let the reader dodge the responsibility of seeing what American infantrymen endure in the name of an ungrateful nation.

Coyle gives us likeable and unlikeable characters. He gives his reader a confident and experienced senior First Lieutenant, assigned as a second set of eyes to "observe" a newly arrived Second Lieutenant on his first patrol. The dynamic between these two officers contributes to the ebb and flow of the story and provides the borders for the members of the platoon to operate in.

This is not just a book about the conflict between two young lieutenants. I was surprised to read that Coyle had painted the senior NCOs as having serious leadership deficiences and it made me realize that the only reason the men ever had any hope of getting home was because 1LT Nathan Dixon was along to shepherd them. It made me wonder about the quality of junior and mid-grade NCO leadership in today's Army. But that discussion is probably best left for another forum.

All in all, this a book that should be required reading for every Army and Marine junior officer and NCO. It is a valuable leadership primer contained within an entertaining novel. I also hope that Coyle keeps this story line (or some variation thereof) and the characters alive in another installment. END END

No question - Coyle is the dean of modern land warfare writers. His descriptions of small-unit maneuvers are so detailed you can feel the mud and snow squish under your boots. It's been so long since I've read his other books, I'd forgotten about whatever was alluded to, but I sure wish Coyle hadn't forgotten the chapter at the end of the book. Just when doom seems ineveitable the (mechanized) cavalry arrive! How? what happened? Not even an after the fact explanation as denouement! Did his editor make him do it? Did he need to meet a deadline and just shipped what he had? Too bad - everything up to that point was as good as infantry stories get.

This book was a page-turner, with a few boring periods slipped in. I could relate to most of the attitudes of the soldiers in the story, although the soldiers' characters were not very well developed. Today, most of the new soldiers that are entering the armed forces care about one thing -- themselves. There was none of the obvious "I'm not doing that", that the modern combat leader faces.

The anxieties of taking a new leadership position in a group of strangers is very accurately portrayed by 2LT Reider. We all look back at our first leadership position in partial embarassment for some of the bone-headed things we did.

The biggest problem with this book is that there are numerous typos, and wrong usages of words -- the kind a spell checker doesn't catch. These were distracting, but only mildly affected my enjoyment of the book.

Any new book by Harold Coyle is cause to interrupt other reading. Of the many who have written fiction around military themes over the past decade or so, Coyle has been perhaps the most interesting in his choice of themes, variety of characters, and willingness to take risks. The latter point brings me to one of the reviews below, which rated this book low because it didn't duplicate exactly an earlier book of Coyle's. But that's what makes Coyle so fascinating--he doesn't just turn out carbon copies of his previous work--he's always growing, learning, and surprising us. This particular novel is wonderfully steeped in place; the military behavior and psychology is very well done; and it's just a fine read. What fans of Harry Coyle are seeing from book to book is the maturing of a writer--although he began at a high level with his first novel, and I do not mean this as a criticism. But consider this: with so many writers, you might as well just re-read the books you already own, because the next one will be the more of the same. Coyle satisfies core interests--but he is willing to push the envelope. From future war to splendid historical fiction, Harold Coyle has given us gift after gift. "God's Children" is one of his best. Strongly recommended.

This book is about the NATO troops sent into Europe to stop the Slovakian's ethnic cleansing of the Hungarians. But, niether side knows why the NATO troops are there.

When the 3rd platoon must take a routine patrol, they get a new platoon leader, and another platoon leader to keep an eye on him. Well, the situation soon gets hairy, and the platoon must make their way back to their home, while dodging the Slovakian Army, and a few other unfortunate incidents.

The book is full of action, suspense, and drama (a fight for power between the two platoon leaders). Though the end was some what shorter than expected, it also contained a plot turn that I didn't think would happen. But, this book reveals the human nature in combat, how we respond. This is a must read for fans of Saving Private Ryan and Clancy readers.

I've been a fan of Coyle for quite a while and I'm of two minds about this book:

On the one hand, having spent over ten years in uniform, I frequently found myself exclaiming, "Exactly!" as I read through the book. Coyle has captured the essence of the military psyche.

On the other hand, I found myself continually being ripped out of the flow of the story by grammatical and spelling errors. My usual reaction was, "Huh? What? That doesn't make any sense." Followed by several re-reads of the offending section trying to figure out what I had missed. I found this a major distraction. This book gave the appearance of having been electronically spell- and grammar-checked without having enjoyed the attentions of a human editor. Or, perhaps it enjoyed such attention but the editor was not familiar with military subject matter and could not tell what made sense and what did not. For shame.