A Soldier's Duty: A Novel [Hardcover]

Thomas E. Ricks (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 15, 2001

Majors Cindy Sherman and Bud Lewis are the best young combat officers the army has, and they’ve both been tapped for plum positions as aides-de-camp for two of the Pentagon’s most senior generals. The Pentagon is a cauldron of careerist jockeying and factional squabbling in the best of times, though, and these are not the best of times. A president whom the officer class widely loathes sits in the White House, and grumblings that he’s steering the military onto the rocks are growing louder. Some officers are openly asking: If you believe the president is betraying his country, where does your duty lie?

Just as Sherman and Lewis ease into their jobs — and into a deepening romance — a secret pressure group of military officers called the Sons of Liberty begins to carry out covert protests, symbolic at first, against White House policy. It is with shock that Lewis comes to suspect the group’s leader is his own boss and hero, General B.Z. Ames, and that the man in the center of Ames’s target is Sherman’s boss, General John Shillingworth. As the White House keeps the army grinding through a miserable third-world brushfire war, the Sons of Liberty’s activities grow more treasonous, and their efforts to avoid detection more ruthless, until Majors Sherman and Lewis find themselves in a vicious game with life-and-death stakes and the future of the American military hanging in the balance.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this brisk and assured fiction debut, set in a near-future Washington, D.C., Washington Post Pentagon correspondent Ricks (author of Making the Corps, an account of boot-camp training) crafts a taut, stimulating tale of contemporary military dilemmas, public and personal. The central issue is the military's role in a democracy: given an unpopular commander-in-chief and an even more unpopular commitment of U.S. troops as peacekeepers in Afghanistan, what is a self-respecting general to do? Ignore his military sense and say yes to a bad political decision, like stolid, hard-drinking army chief-of-staff John Shillingsworth? Or defy orders and attack the position of the civilian government, like flashy, Custeresque B.Z. Ames, vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff? As the two debate the issues with their romantically involved aides, Majors Cindy Sherman and Buddy Lewis, U.S. troops get bogged down in Afghanistan, lives are lost, officers are court-martialed and a shadowy group of officers called the Sons of Liberty slowly moves from e-mail dissent to outright treason. Ricks uses a crisp, reportorial style to get into the heads of all his characters, and by making them passionate about their positions, he succeeds in creating a genuine debate in which both sides make good sense. Only when the actions of the Ames side become murderous does the book flirt with predictability, but it never goes too far, thanks to Ricks's control of the narrative. This engrossing read will satisfy those who want ideas as well as action it's an unusually thoughtful military thriller. (May 22)Forecast: The intrigue here is mostly D.C-based and often intellectual, and may not appeal to readers of mainstream thrillers. But those who appreciate a more challenging perspective will be in their element. A five-city author tour and national advertising are scheduled.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This first novel by Ricks, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post journalist, is an intriguing, thoughtful, and exciting tale of today's U.S. military. When a peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan goes tragically wrong, officers led by Gen. B.Z. Ames form a treasonous group called the "Sons of Liberty" to unravel American foreign policy and further General Ames's position. Army majors Cindy Sherman and Bud Lewis are newly assigned to the Pentagon, where they become involved in both sides of the developing problem. Although it does share themes with Fletcher Knebel's classic Seven Days in May, this work is unique in its take on a military that is sworn to uphold the Constitution but must deal with a White House that has little regard for life. Though occasionally preachy, Ricks's debut is an interesting and fast-paced commentary on the complex problems confronting the military and the civilian government. For all general collections.
- Robert Conroy, Warren, MI
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Random House; 1st edition (May 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 037550544X
• ISBN-13: 978-0375505447
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,809,831 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A page-turner ..., May 28, 2001

By 

Richard Henricks (Bamberg, Germany) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Soldier's Duty: A Novel (Hardcover)

It's a page-turner, especially for military types that give a heck about this man's Army.

I suppose there should be a law on the books somewhere that requires authors who write about the U.S. military to have either been in the U.S. military -- or to be journalists who deploy into war zones more often than the average Joe deploys in a career.

This is a good book. He got the language right by being the first civilian in history to master acronymic milspeak (plus accurate expletive usage). He arrived at the correct assumptions with gender issues (or he talked to a lot of female soldiers that have put up with the rather ubiquitous sexual-harassment drivel that exists in today's military). He even got the right take on the "no psychos allowed" syndrome in the military that goes like this: Seek mental-health assistance and you can say "Bye" to your military career.

And he made it sound as though he may have actually attended one of those dismounted patrols that should have never happened (as in, yep, there are a few patrols -- training, combat, whatever -- that make absolutely no sense).

Although it was hard to get used to at first, some of the best reading would be the total-insubordination events, one of which I would have given at least one body part to have observed (to have observed actually happening with a past, real-world president). Or, maybe it did happen and nobody told me ... big sigh. The exceptional thing he captured while "reporting" on the U.S. military with this novel -- with the keen Somalia-through-Kosovo analogies -- is that some of the unruliness has probably actually occurred (although I would like to think that, in reality, a good sergeant major would lock a few heels, officer or otherwise).

The book hit a personal nerve when he managed to put into words a difficulty I have always had with the whole "charge the old machine-gun nest" thing (time hack: circa the end of the Cold War).

The largest commentary I saw was on the mission creep that has been going in our military for the past fifty or so years with the clowns that think their careers are more important than taking care of subordinates.

Anyway.

Ricks even dings on the media, albeit from a military perspective. :-)

With his first novel, Ricks has displayed an uncanny knack for delving deeply into the U.S. military mind at all levels. His breadth of knowledge about our military "es-tab-lish-ment," our history (which he manages to relate better than some military historians), the District of Columbia, and a number of U.S. military installations -- verges on the incredible.

Finally. A book about the U.S. military that actually says something.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb, tough-minded and authentic!, May 16, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: A Soldier's Duty: A Novel (Hardcover)

Tom Ricks, who just might be the nation's finest military journalist, has written a remarkably-good first novel. Based upon the tensions within today's military and the very real challenges posed by a changing world, Ricks takes lead characters who have just the right feel as examples of today's Army officers and puts them through a kick-butt, hold-on-tight story that takes the reader from commando raids and foreign firefights to the even more vicious combat inside the Pentagon and the government. From oblivious politicians to conniving generals, Ricks gets the Washington scene dead-on, while his details-perfect view of the military, in the field or in office suites, is one of the best I've ever encountered (as a recently-retired officer, I know that world pretty well). So, high praise to Ricks for a tightly-written, faster-than-a-speeding-bullet and very convincing thriller. Highly-recommended for soldiers and civilians. And, by the way, this novel would make a great movie.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Rightest Stuff, May 27, 2001

By 

Jeffry L. Huber "Jeff Huber" (Virginia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Soldier's Duty: A Novel (Hardcover)

Let me add to the praise already lavished on Thomas E. Ricks' A Soldier's Duty. In many ways, it is the quintessential moral tale of the post-Soviet, post-modern age.

Mr. Ricks accomplishes a number of extraordinary things with this book. He summarizes a universe of complex contemporary issues in a volume that can be read in a single rainy day. He establishes dramatic tension from the start and maintains it throughout the piece. He creates complex, three dimensional characters with the brushstrokes of a minimalist. And as he does in his journalistic writing, he presents all sides of the issue in an even, dispassionate manner.

With A Soldier's Duty, Mr. Ricks has revived a genre that was teetering on the brink of destructive self-imitation. If you read one military related novel this year, A Soldier's Duty is the one to read.