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Editorial Reviews
From Booklist
*Starred Review* In the opening pages, portraying an infantry platoon tensely awaiting the enemy, Axe seems to start his ROTC report at the end, with new soldiers in the field. Actually, he's describing a combat exercise to home in on one of the book's four focal figures and the different objectives of students and instructors during such exercises. Both know this is play. But the cadets must go at it for real, with the trainers watching, looking especially for leadership capability. Recounting the experiences of University of South Carolina cadets, particularly those of two men and two women, Axe presents ROTC functions, such as Ranger Challenge, a competition involving skills and actions required of special forces soldiers, and Airborne School, which teaches jumping out of planes at low altitudes. He also discusses ROTC culture, which is disproportionately African American (three of the four focal students are black) and, like the professional military, biased toward men; one woman is sidelined because she can't do a pull-up suited up, and the other, an ace soldier who matches the men even at drinking, must realize she probably can't have an infantry career. Axe's concrete prose, his lack of prejudice and partisanship, and his respect for every cadet and army educator he limns, as well as for the ROTC itself, make this massively informative little book great reading. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Book Description
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*Starred Review* In the opening pages, portraying an infantry platoon tensely awaiting the enemy, Axe seems to start his ROTC report at the end, with new soldiers in the field. Actually, he's describing a combat exercise to home in on one of the book's four focal figures and the different objectives of students and instructors during such exercises. Both know this is play. But the cadets must go at it for real, with the trainers watching, looking especially for leadership capability. Recounting the experiences of University of South Carolina cadets, particularly those of two men and two women, Axe presents ROTC functions, such as Ranger Challenge, a competition involving skills and actions required of special forces soldiers, and Airborne School, which teaches jumping out of planes at low altitudes. He also discusses ROTC culture, which is disproportionately African American (three of the four focal students are black) and, like the professional military, biased toward men; one woman is sidelined because she can't do a pull-up suited up, and the other, an ace soldier who matches the men even at drinking, must realize she probably can't have an infantry career. Axe's concrete prose, his lack of prejudice and partisanship, and his respect for every cadet and army educator he limns, as well as for the ROTC itself, make this massively informative little book great reading. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Book Description
Undergrads with guns. That is how war correspondent David Axe summarizes the bifurcated existence of some thirty thousand cadets currently participating in Reserve Officers Training Corps programs at 270 U.S. colleges and universities. In Army 101, Axe takes readers inside an Army ROTC program in his investigation into the training and lives of student-cadets being hardened into the next generation of volunteer citizen-soldiers.
Drawing heavily from candid interviews conducted with cadets and trainers of the Gamecock Battalion at the University of South Carolina, Army 101 traces the experiences of a representative mix of students--freshmen to seniors of both sexes and many races--essentially minoring in the military while also pursuing regular undergraduate degrees in diverse fields. Axe invites us along to witness the quagmire of confusion in a nighttime training exercise, the immersion into procedures and jargon of the classroom, and the high aspirations of candidates at Airborne School. Replete with a vivid account of the annual Ranger Challenge--the varsity sport of ROTC--and a campus visit from the commander in chief, George W. Bush, Axe's narrative follows the unit through the exercises and experiences that are designed to recast the cadets as junior officers in America's long war on terrorism. Not all guns and marches, the volume also explores the rivalry and revelry that define the cadets' off-hours as much as they characterize the lives of all college students.
Respectful of his subjects' motivations and achievements, Axe is also critical of the training they receive. ROTC is an uneasy marriage of civilian and military existence and, according to Axe, produces officers who can demonstrate the best and worst aspects of both worlds. His investigation exposes chinks in the armor and draws attention to program weaknesses, from the physical and emotional strain of dual lives to sexual harassment, war protests, disheartening morale, and other reasons why cadets wash out. Axe also interrogates military and government policies that unequally distribute the rewards and responsibilities of service.
Army 101 is an insider's look at the current state of training and the cultural values being taught to those who will soon join the ranks of nearly ten thousand ROTC graduates already serving in activity duty around the globe. This is the story of the USC Gamecock Battalion--undergrads with guns.
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