Customer Reviews

One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer

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Legit.

A Recon Marine always gives more than he takes. With this said I respectfully thank and honor Capt. Fick for his private and revealing book about Idealism, loss of innoccence, and the Mask of Command. Do Leaders regret, do they feel, do they disagree? Yes, the Legit ones do. However they rarely disobey. Ramparts become stepping stones and enemy ambushes proving grounds for small unit tactics and fire and manuever. One Bullet Away reveales Ficks' secret heart and the violence it bears and also the mans truth and compassion gained by combat. I Myself was a bullet away on more than one occassion and in one particular ambush, Capt. Fick layed it on the line and decisively and calmly saved my teams life. I will always admire, respect and love the Warrior who gave more than he took from 1st Recon Battallion. And all of his men are of the same mind as myself. His book is an affirmation to our platoon and its leadership. Plt Commander and Plt Sergeant be blessed. The men of 2nd Plt thank you. Read the book, it is Legit. Rudy Reyes-Recon Forever

"I left the Corps because I had become a reluctant warrior. Many Marines reminded me of gladiators. They had that mysterious quality that allows some men to strap on greaves and a breastplate and wade into the gore. I respected, admired and emulated them, but I could never be like them. I could kill when killing was called for, and I got hooked on the rush of combat as much as any man did. But I couldn't make the conscious choice to put myself in that position again and again throughout my professional life. Great Marine commanders, like all great warriors, are able to kill that which they love most-their men. It's a fundamental law of warfare. Twice I had cheated it. I couldn't tempt fate again." Words of wisdom from Nathaniel Fick. This is a book that gives us the realities of military and Marine life in particular, and written with a superb command of the language and the military mind.

Nathaniel Fick was a Dartmouth student who wanted to be a physician. He had difficulty with one of his science courses, and this changed the shape of his life. He realized he wanted to go on a great adventure, prove himself, and do something for his country. And that something was revealed in a lecture he went to about the Marines. He joined the Marines and went through one of the most difficult courses of his life,he thought at the time; Officers Candidate School. Not understanding that the real tests were to come. He became a Second Lieutenant and he went on to Recon school. Reconnaissance teams are the elite of the Marine Corps, if elite was a word in their military language. Recon teams go on the most dangerous missions of all- teams calling for emergency extracts and any form of mission that your mind can imagine.

"The Marines develop leaders who are not only skilled, courageous, and tough, but also humane" Lt Fick was one of these. His first orders were that of a platoon leader, and his first assignment was on a ship. He led some very dangerous missions into Afghanistan, and then the most dangerous mission of all; The Iraq war. "War for freedom, war for oil, Philosophical disputes were a luxury I could not enjoy. War was what I had. We don't vote for it, authorize it, or declare it; We just had to fight it." said Lt Fick. And fight it, he did with his platoon. He brought his men through some of the most dangerous of missios. The fact that all of the men he brought with him to Iraq, came home with him in one piece was Lt Fick's own particular mission. He and his men played a small part in the quick "win" in Baghdad. His experience, intelligence and superb actions as an officer won Lt Fick his promotion to Captain. However, this was enough of war. Nathaniel Fick knew he could not continue. He left the Marines and spent a year drifting. He realized that combat had nearly unhinged him. He channeled all his energies into applying to graduate school.

Nathaniel Fick is now in graduate school at Harvard University and the Kennedy School of Government. He has written this book about his life as a Marine, and he has written several articles discussing the military life and the Iraq War. One of his most recent lettérs is about the Iraq war and personal responsibility, and it is brilliantly written. The url is found at the end of this review.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/20/opinion/20fick.html?pagewanted=print

"One Bullet Away" is a marvelous book and highly, highly recommended. Prisrob

This book easily has historic qualities, with insights derived from from personal recollections and observations. Even morbid overtones are captured artfully. Youthful cynicism of Fick and his contemporaries speaks to the reader with extraordinary eloquence. But the most engaging thing about One Bullet Away is how the author is transfomed from an adolescence student at Dartmouth into a full-fleged warrior a few years later, able to manage the physical and psychological rigor of combat in both Afghanistan and Iraq. My permanent bond with Fick was completed on page 143, where he lays out a idea more powerful than an IED: "My time if Afghanistan hadn't been traumatic. I hadn't killed anyone, and no one had come all that close to killing me. But jingoism, however mild, rang hollow. Flag-waving, tough talk, a yellow ribbon on every bumper. I didn't see any real interest in understanding the war on the ground. No one acknowledged that the fight would be long and dirty, and that maybe the enemy had courage and ideals too."
Fick doesn't have to say more to remind us that bin Laden continues to evade us, meaning victory is illusive. So far Fick has delivered one book and a few articles in the New York Times. Surely this is just the beginning of this author's career on the path to wisdom and knowledge.

I was fortunate to receive a rare galley of "One Bullet Away," or "OBA," and immediately got through the first 100 pages the first night. Fick's prose is by far the best of the current plethora of Afghanistan/Iraq war memoirs (throw in the few Desert Storm books too). His writing actually flows with descriptive details from his days as a junior at Dartmouth through officer candidate school. The meat of OBA starts with his post-9/11 tour in Afghanistan as a rifle platoon commander and his stint with First Recon Battalion (the best of the best) during the march to Baghdad in 2003.

While no war diary will offer every perspective ("I was there" embedded journalist, know-it-all retired general, bickering grunt, the first female in ground combat), OBA doesn't pretend to be the ultimate account of the war. It was a treat not to read about another grunt complaining about officers and pay and not knowing what he/she was getting into upon enlistment.

However, Fick's experience is comparable to a Marine lieutenant who landed in Vietnam in 1965, the first year of that bitter and protracted conflict for American combat troops. (Unlike the welcome in Baghdad, there were South Vietnamese girls who greeted the Marines with leis as they landed ashore.) The current wars have a long way to go with the most difficult challenges ahead.

Still OBA provides rare insights into a young officer's mental state as he leads young volunteers into harm's way twice and manages to bring them all back alive. Fick, an atypical officer from the Ivy League, writes admirably about his Marines who come from broken backgrounds. He doesn't come off sounding like he's too good to be there on the front lines with his men nor do his critical observations meant to further his career (he's in graduate school at Harvard).

OBA is a timely must-read, not only for military buffs and veterans, but for our society at large.

The book is no propaganda only facts. Fick is accurate and humble regarding his actions. The sensationalism and conjecture in the majority of the books on the market is absent from his account. Instead, One Bullet Away focuses on the experiences and challenges he faced, not what should have been done or what could have been done - Fick deals with reality.

Fick leads the reader from his commissioning as a Marine Officer to his decision to exit the Corps five years later. You get a first hand account from a Marine who served in Afghanistan and Iraq and completed the most challenging schools the Marine Corps can throw at you.
The author opens up to the reader and shares his emotions and inner thoughts giving an unvarnished look at what the Corps expects from our officers. The book was a pleasure to read and I hope when the American public thinks of the word Marine, they picture someone like Nate.

Tremendous effort. Dang!

In flowing narrative, Fick leads the reader from his initial decision to become a US Marine, through his subsequent training, and finally into the wars of Afghanistan and Iraq. I found it an exceptionally honest and raw look into military life, and into the current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

One Bullet Away gives an account of what it means to be a soldier today fighting on the front lines. With nuance it discusses the real consequences of our country's decision to go war. I've also read Generation Kill, another excellent account of the Iraqi invasion written by the reporter (Evan Wright) embedded in Fick's platoon. While many of the experiences in Iraq covered by Wright are similar to those of Fick, Wright observed the enlisted Marines' experience at war as an outsider. One Bullet Away offers another view - that of how the platoon commanders on the ground make difficult decisions to lead Marines in war. It captures the angst of those decisions, which have very real and dangerous consequences for Fick, his men, and the civilians living in the battlefields.

One Bullet Away is also enjoyable to read. Fick clearly and vividly describes his experience in the Marines with candor and intimate detail, and he captures the range of emotions caused by training, war, and returning home - laughter, fear, frustration, sadness, and pride.

One Bullet Away does not focus on the policy behind the war, but offers instead a complicated look at what it actually means for this country to be at war, and what it means to be a Marine. Not only is this an excellent book, powerfully written and interesting to read; it is an important book, that every American civilian wanting to find out what the war is actually like, must read.

"One Bullet Away" is a young Marine officer's revealing memoir of service. Fick took a commission in the Marine Corps upon graduating Dartmouth in 1999. You have to admire the idealism that drove his decision to enlist when so many others rush out of college in pursuit of money and personal diversion. As well as a great read, the book offers some important insights into the American way of war.

The account of Marine Officer Candidate School makes for the book's most engaging episode. There is a fascination in watching the Corps mold a leader in its own image. Fick seems to find balance between absorbing the valuable lessons and resisting the deeper indoctrination. From his accounts of higher ranking officers, it seems that those who go furthest in the Corps are not necessarily just the greatest warriors, but those who most effectively embody the Marine Corps aesthetic. For instance the general officer who concludes a speech by recounting a pathetic attempt at cooking Christmas dinner in C-ration tins in a muddy trench in Vietnam: "We sang Silent Night and the Marine Corps Hymn. It was raining and the candles wouldn't stay lit. So we went back to our fighting holes and continued killing Vietcong." This vignette seems to capture the peculiar Marine mélange of dogged determination, fatalism, and matter-of-factness about inflicting violence on the enemy.

If Fick's book ever drags, it's during his unit's deployment to Afghanistan in the wake of the 9-11 attacks. It's his first combat command, but in fact his unit is involved in almost no actual combat there. Mostly the tour consists of pulling guard duty at a desert airfield supporting the air war - the real main show in Afghanistan.

One interesting moment occurs when the troops are issued winter gear in advance of an attack on Qaeda strongholds on the Pakistani border. The mission never happens and the gear is re-collected. Meanwhile, as we all know now, Bin Laden and his fighters were slipping over the mountains and through CENTCOM's fingers. In fact we probably knew this at the time; the administration feared the political damage that might ensue from Lt. Fick and others like him showing up on casualty lists.

The high command showed no such reluctance when the time came to roll across the Iraqi border in the drive for Baghdad. Fick's account of his experience leading a platoon of Force Recon troops during the first invasion wave is the centerpiece of his memoir and a truly gripping piece of writing. The scenes of combat - and there are many, as Fick's recon unit led the offensive against Republican Guard units in central Iraq - unfold with "you-are-there" intensity. In this first person account, some basic truths about the Iraq war come through perhaps more clearly than they have in journalism or will in future scholarly accounts. America owes its swift victory to two key factors: (1) the professionalism, dedication and courage of its troops; and (2) the military ineptitude of the enemy. Time and again Fick shows how the Iraqi regime resistance is halfhearted and disorganized. He describes several close calls with Iraqi forces which fail to stop coalition troops only because of poor planning and execution. In one notable case, Iraqis ambushed Fick's column with an antiaircraft gun, a very powerful weapon, hidden in a palm grove. But the gun was improperly placed and its crew's fire inaccurate. What could have been a terrible situation for the Americans was thankfully defeated with a quick air strike. But it raises the troubling question: what will happen when American troops finally meet with a determined, competent enemy in sizable numbers?

Fick never seems to question the rationale or ethics of the war itself. One senses this is a topic he is consciously avoiding in this book. He wants his book read as a personal memoir, not a political tract. In the current acrimonious climate of debate the avoidance strategy makes sense. Fick's perspective stays ground-level throughout: combat leaders can't afford to indulge in abstract musings. The focus is making the choices that lead to victory on the one hand and survival on the other. Usually the challenge is to choose the "least bad" option. Stop to aid a wounded civilian or focus on the mission? Both courses have real-world and potentially deadly consequences. One of the bitter fruits of his experience is the realization that, in securing victory on the battlefield, the officer of Marines - or any combat leader - has to be able and willing "to kill what he loves most - his men."

This is among the few honest accounts I've read of war. The author admits his own faults and doesn't hesitate to praise the work of others. Usually such books are focused on all the author's great deeds. ONE BULLET AWAY is the real deal. It truthfully shares everything that happened - from saving lives to shooting at children.

The author was featured in the book GENERATION KILL. ONE BULLET AWAY isn't the "other side" of the story, matching GENERATION KILL sentence by sentence. It is this author's story as he experienced war and the Marine Corps.

With the lack of true leaders within all levels of the military, government and private sector, Fick offers hope for the next generation. At such a young age, he had the strength of self to turn away from high-paying job possibilities when he graduated from Dartmouth, and joined the Marines instead. He also volunteered for Recon, joining an elite group of Marines, known for being in harms way more often than not.

He didn't have to join. He had other opportunities. His sense of duty to his country and need to understand war, why it is fought, and how it is fought, took him out of his Ivy league classroom and into the brutal hands-on classroom of war.

Nathaniel Fick's One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer is outstanding in its scope to its execution-qualities that are all too rare in most accounts of personal experience in war. The book details Fick's decision to join the Marine Corps while a Dartmouth undergraduate and his service in Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003.

In its scope, it is an important coming of age story and combat memoir and, as such, the book ranks with Seigfried Sassoon's Memoirs of an Infantry Officer, or E.B. Sledge's With the Old Breed. As with those classic books, readers are immediately drawn into the story as Fick recounts life in the pre-9/11 Marine Corps, and the intensity and focus of life after the terror attacks on 9/11. Through his account, the reader understands the spirit of the men and women who serve in our armed forces. At times, this means a healthy suspicion of everything, great cynicism, and often gallows humor.

More significantly, Fick imparts to the reader a comprehension of life among Marines, where honor is not a concept but a way of life, as important to Marines as their weapons or ammunition. His men and he are the best of their generation. They possess a patriotism that is like a steel blade of the greatest strength: cold, solid, and sharp-definitely not for show-whetted by professionalism in the art of killing and a strong sense of duty.

The book is equally well executed. Fick writes with great skill, and so the reader has the acute sense of uncertainty about the objectives of the war, its horror in the conduct of the campaign, and elation at its end, as Fick recounts the events in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Reading the book, you can feel the sweat and dirt collecting on your skin, the haunting fear of chemical weapons, the camaraderie of men, the role chance plays in a warrior's life, and ultimately, how people react to the horrors of war as they happen and after the conflict ends.

The book should be read by those who want to understand military life, the training and life of Marines, leadership in combat, or for those who want an honest and direct appraisal of combat and the present situation in Iraq.

When you buy One Bullet Away make sure to get an extra copy for a friend because you're going to want to talk to someone about it. You'll find yourself still thinking about it weeks after you've read it. Especially the section on the war in Iraq. Nathaniel Fick's true story of the struggle between his duty to the commander vs. the welfare of his platoon should be required reading in every ethics class in the country.

We've read and heard enough about the bad things that have happened in Iraq. Fick's account will renew your faith in the troops. Fick doesn't shy away from telling about the gruesome, scary, ugly events. But he tells you about the good things too: Marines surviving on one MRE per day giving their food away to hungry Iraqi civilians, challenging commanders in order to save wounded Iraqi children, and putting their lives on the line to save each other.

I first read about Nathaniel Fick in Evan Wright's Generation Kill, which I also highly recommend. Wright does an excellent job of introducing the reader to Fick's Recon platoon, and describes the action through the eyes of an embedded reporter. Fick takes you deeper with details of how the action unfolds and how decisions are made. But more importantly, he shares his personal story of carrying the weight of his men's lives and well-being on his shoulders. He admits to his own fears and perceived weaknesses. And you come away with a better understanding of the moral and ethical dilemmas an officer faces. I especially applaud Fick's courage in describing his return to the US and the lasting effects of combat. I wish he'd write an entire book on the subject.

When you finish Fick's book you'll want to meet him, shake his hand, and thank him. I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to meet him at a book signing recently. There were many people in line, including a retired USMC Major who told me Fick's descriptions were extremely accurate and brought back many memories. It took a long time to reach the front of the line because it seemed everyone there wished they could have an hour with Fick. I know I did. Fick's book answers so many questions, yet you still want to know more. You want to know how he and all his men are doing today. Fick showed a genuine interest in each person who approached him. You get the sense he's the type of leader who inspires loyalty.

You can see that loyalty in the other reviews here. Check out the reviews by RT Bryan, Rudy Reyes, and Keith Marine - all of them served under Fick. He's retired from the service, so these aren't attempts to kiss up to the boss. And even one of the few negative reviews (by Salty Tex) only adds to the credibility of Fick's story. Salty Tex served as a commander in Fick's batallion. It is no secret in One Bullet Away and Generation Kill that Salty Tex and Fick are two men who see things very differently. They disagreed in Iraq, and it's no surprise that Tex wants a chance to get his two cents in here. I can't really blame him, although I disagree with him. However, he does speculate that Fick may one day run for political office. I hope he's right.