[morse1001]

One Bullet Away - the Making of a Marine Officer By Nathaniel Fick.

This is a book about a young classics student who joined the Marine Corp in 1998. he goes into detail about the way he was trained as a officer and a marine in the modern service. Some of the stuff is very interesting including things like "killology" classes!

But he was commisioned just before 9/11 and was bound for training in Austrailia when word came through about the attack. His ship was diverted and headed up the pacific and ended up in the Indian sea. It was here when his unit was alerted to plan an operation to go into Afghanistan and protect a downed blackhawk helicopter while it was being recoverd.

Once this was done, he and his unit moved to a base nearby and he describd the conditions of living in a american base deep in the heart of Afghanistan. It was not very hospitable and they found it difficult to get used to the place.

The main part of his book deals with his time in Iraq during the second gulf war. By this time he had moved to being a platoon leader with the recon branch of the marines. the picture he creates was somewhat different from that presented on the various news channels. Some Iraqis did fight back and held up the americans before the yanks realized that it was better to outflank the towns and thus avoid any attacks.

He also describes the adventures of his unit as they moved into Bagdad and carried out routine patrol duties in thier zone of the city.

It was an interesting read!


It is worth comparing it with A Rumour of War by Phillip Capato, who trained as a marine officer in the sixties and was part of the first american unit to land in Vietnam and his subsequent service in that country.