(Spoiler Alert)

I first read about the book One Bullet Away: The making of a Marine Officer in an issue of U.S. News.  The issue had several articles about future leaders and one of them was about young junior military officers.  It described how they were getting lots of valuable combat experience from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.  It mentioned Nathaniel Fick and his book One Bullet Away as an example of the type of valuable experience they were getting.  I researched further and the premise of the book seemed interesting: a Dartmouth student studying Classics decides to become a Marine in order to have a real adventure.  Most of his classmates are going to law school, medical school, or other graduate school, joining the Peace Corps or Teach for America, or getting a high paying job.  They all think he’s crazy.  The book goes on to describe his experiences in Officer Candidate School (OCS), the Basic School (TBS), his time in Afghanistan, more training for the Recon division, and then the real meat of the book: his time in Iraq.

Fick’s career as an officer begins at OCS, a kind of boot camp for officers that takes place in the summer between his junior and senior years at Dartmouth.  It takes place at the Marine base in Quantico, Virginia.  He learns very quickly that the Marines, like all branches of the armed forces, have their own nomenclature, acronyms, and traditions.  When thirsty, Marines don’t “drink water”, they “hydrate.”  Flashlights are called moonbeams and running shoes are called go-fasters.  As I read I sometimes got confused by all the acronyms used such as TBS (The Basic School), MEU (Marine Expeditionary Unit?), and MOS (Military Occupational Specialty).  One acronym I do remember is an unofficial one: CDI for Chicks Dig It.  As Fick’s former Platoon Sergeant describes, “Football team: high CDI.  Chess club: low CDI.  Platoon Sergeant: High CDI.  Weapons section Sergeant: Low CDI.”

The purpose of OCS is to weed out the candidates unfit for command.  After OCS and his senior year at Dartmouth Fick attends The Basic School (TBS) to really learn how to be an officer.  TBS consisted of classes along with field training and during written tests the instructors cranked Metallica at full volume, hurled tennis balls at officer’s heads, and squirted them with water pistols.  “The lesson was focus: ignore the distractions.” (Fick p. 37)  Something else he does at TBS is select his preferred military occupational specialty (MOS).  Desiring the most adventure he selects infantry, though only 10% of Marine officers go to infantry.  The rest “go to other combat arms such as artillery, amphibious assault vehicles, and tanks—or to support jobs such as supply, administration, and even financial management.” (p. 33)  I didn’t know that financial management was an MOS.  That would be my first choice.  Later while on a ship preparing to go to Afghanistan he describes how logisticians brought up ammunition from the ship’s magazine.  That’s another MOS that would interest me though I don’t think I’d enjoy OCS very much.

After finishing TBS Fick is assigned to a battalion based in San Diego.  Each battalion consists of three companies (Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie) and each company consists of three platoons.  He is placed in charge of a weapons platoon of around 20 Marines.  I was surprised he didn’t say much about his Marines other than his platoon sergeant, Keith Marine (his real name).  He writes much more about his Recon platoon in Iraq.  They train together and they are assigned to a ship.  The Marines are the troops that reside in ships to be immediately dispatched when needed on shore.  This differs from the much larger Army who are primarily a land force, the Navy who remain at sea, and the Air Force who patrol the skies.  There’s a lot of gray area between the branches, though, such as the Navy also has fighter pilots, and the Army and Marines both use helicopters.  Fick is at sea when 9/11 occurs and his expectation of an easy peacetime service is eliminated.  He and his platoon are sent to Afghanistan to conduct recovery and support missions.  On the way there, traveling through Pakistan, a Pakistani army officer offers him tea.  He has one cup, drinking it quickly so he can get back to mission.  Just one cup of tea makes him a stranger according to the rules set forth in the book Three Cups of Tea.

After his time in Afghanistan, Fick joins the Recon company of his battalion that gets assigned more dangerous missions than regular companies.  His new platoon consists of more experienced Marines included some with combat experience from places like Samolia or from working as a repo man in L.A.  One of his team leaders, Sergeant Larry Shawn Patrick is called “Pappy” by the others because of his grandfatherly 30 years of age.  Later in the book another Sergeant refers to Patrick as “The old man”.  Soon, the rumors of and preparations for the war in Iraq begin.  Fick and his roommate have dinner at Jay’s, their favorite restaurant in San Diego before he his deployed to Kuwait with his platoon.  In Iraq, Fick experiences lots of combat action: firefights, ambushes, the taking of prisoners, and lots of destruction inflicted by both sides.  He’s on or near the front lines during the major pre-insurgency fighting.  He and his platoon undertake a long journey by Humvee from Kuwait to Bagdad, fighting in towns, securing bridges, supporting other combat units, and securing different areas.  War is a big effort of coordination.  Troops have to do a lot of waiting for orders to move out and get ready.  They move around a lot, sleeping in holes where ever they happen to be at the time.  Combat actions occur quickly and often the troops don’t see the full results of their damage.  During these early days of the Iraq war they fight the Iraqi army and the Republican guard rather than the insurgency of later years.  Roadside bombs and IED’s are not yet common.  But, as a sergeant says, “If the people don’t want for themselves what we want for them then this will be (another) Vietnam.” (p. 318)

Something Fick often mentions are the standard military rations, Meals-Ready-to-Eat or MREs.  We can relate to them because one of my wife’s former instructors is in the Army reserve and he shared some official military MREs with her class.  She saw how the built-in mechanisms cooked the MRE when one of her classmates opened his and shared it.  She could even hear it sizzling.  We can get more “civilian MRE’s” at the store Major Survival.  My wife had been told that one MRE was enough food for one day.  However, Fick seems to disagree when he writes, “We had been eating only one MRE a day because the truck carrying the extra food had been blown up by fedayeen near Qalat Sukkar (in Iraq) . . . I was too hungry to sleep.” (p. 260)  MREs also provide the in-flight meals in the C5 air transport from the Air Force base in Riverside to Moro’n, Spain and eventually to Kuwait.  That flight also has no in-flight movie or any window seats for the passengers.  Fick describes how MRE’s are not designed for hungry refugees.   For them they have humanitarian rations or “humrats” that come in bright yellow packages, don’t require any cooking mechanisms, and consist of unobjectionable foods (e.g. no meat) such as crackers, rice, beans, and candy.  On Christmas Day in Afghanistan Fick’s platoon prunes tumbleweeds into triangular shapes and decorates them with candy and mini Tabasco bottles from the MREs.  During the previous week they had squirreled away packets of cheese or pound cake—MRE delicacies—as presents for their buddies. (p. 137)  My wife learned that MREs last five years or longer.  While in Afghanistan in 2002 Fick is cooking an omelet from his MRE using the MRE heater.  He opens the packet of M&M’s also from the MRE and notices an ad to win tickets to the Olympics: the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona meaning that the MRE is 10 years old.  His officer buddy tells him, “Enjoy the omelet, bro.”

I’m glad Fick wrote One Bullet Away.  It’s an excellent account of the Iraq war and the experiences of a junior officer.  He writes well and really captures of the camaraderie with his men, the boredom of waiting contrasted with the rapid-fire excitement of combat, the occasional frustration with upper command’s lack of coordination, and the split second decisions required.  He seems like he was an excellent officer, treating his men well.   When I was reading this book on the train a guy sitting next to me asked whether it was written by a soldier.  He said he prefers books about war written by soldiers even if they may not be as well written as books written by historians and journalists.  I’ve read some good books about war by historians, journalists and authors such as Ghost Soldiers by Hampton Sides, In Harm’s Way by Doug Stanton, and Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden.  I’d say the writing quality of One Bullet Away is comparable to those other books.  That it’s written by a participating Marine gives it a whole extra level of credibility.  The title comes from a lesson that Fick learns about the roles of the platoon commander versus the platoon sergeant.  Too often, platoon commanders focus on the mission while platoon sergeants focus on troop welfare.  The instructor tells him, “You have to do both.  What’s the difference between you and your platoon sergeant?  One bullet.” (p. 23)

In early April my wife purchased and downloaded the CD “Now That’s What I Call Classic Power Ballads”.  There have been many “Now That’s What I Call Music” collections put out during the past 25 years or so such as “Now That’s what I Call Christmas”.  I have been a fan of 80’s music since it was current and a fan of Hair Metal bands.  A staple of both these general and specific genres was the power ballad.  This collection contains 18 power ballads and a very wide variety of them.  They’re not by all hair bands and not all from the 80’s either.

The collection begins with a staple power ballad: “Every Rose Has Its Thorn”.  Poison was ranked the number one hair band on a show on VH1 many years ago.  They’re known for songs about partying and excess and “Every Rose” reveals a softer, more soulful side.  The next track is “Faithfully” by Journey, a band from the 70’s and 80’s, though not a hair band.  When VH1 did its own ranking of power ballads, Journey’s “Open Arms” was ranked number one.  But I’m glad the “Now” collection includes the relatively less popular and less cheesy “Faithfully” instead.  It’s deeper, seems to tell a story, and is equally powerful.  The next song is from the late 90’s by a perennially popular band: “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” by Aerosmith from the movie Armageddon. I remember that the song wasn’t written by Aerosmith but by Diane Warren and it was also nominated for an Academy Award.  Perennially popular bands continue with the Kiss song “Forever”.  I believe this is from their non-makeup hair band and possibly Day-Glo phase.

The next song indicates that the power ballad and hair band are not exclusively American phenomena (though Journey does have non-American members).  It’s a song that asks the appropriate power ballad question: “Is This Love” by Whitesnake.  This English band is actually one of the hair band forerunners.  The next song breaks another stereotype: that all power ballads are sung by men.  “Never” by the Seattle band Heart is a fun-sounding power ballad.  One of the top placers of the lip-sync contest at my middle school performed “Never”.  The next track is a slower, emotional song from a group known for faster, more fun songs.  It’s “The Flame” by Cheap Trick and a bit of a change from their songs “I Want You to Want Me” and “Surrender”.  Unlike the latter, “The Flame” does not mention The Philippines.  Bad English recorded the next song, the romantic “When I See You Smile”.  I believe they could be classified as a “supergroup” with John Waite on vocals and at least one member or former member of Journey.  I used to own their debut album that had classics such as “Possession”, “Forget Me Not”, and “Heaven is a Four Letter Word” but my tape died.

It’s back to power ballad staples with the next song, the powerful but overplayed (in its time) “Sister Christian” by Night Ranger.  The song isn’t exactly a love song, nor is it Christian rock.  In fact I never really knew what it was about until I saw the 80’s music musical “Rock of Ages”.  Right before the female lead, Sherry Christian, moves from her small hometown to L.A. her parents sing “Sister Christian”.  Later in the musical her boyfriend sings “Oh Sherry” to win her back, though this song isn’t in the “Now” power ballad collection.  The next song is a soulful track from a group known for their soundtrack songs.  “The Search is Over” by Survivor is a celebratory power ballad.  Most of their big songs such as “Eye of the Tiger” area about triumph over adversity and “Seach” has that feel, though it’s more about triumph over naivete (my interpretation).  I believe the next song was a one-hit-wonder but what a hit it was.  “When I’m with You” by Sheriff is a powerful, grandiose song about “being with you”.  It contains one of the longest sustained singing notes in a rock song.

The next song is another foreign act, this time from the European continent.  It’s the edgy, rockin’ power ballad “Still Loving You” by the Scorpions from Germany.  It’s back to American hair metal for the next song: the wailing “Fly to the Angels” by Slaughter.  The next song was one of two early 90’s hits from the band “Extreme”, the slower, soulful, and acoustic “More then Words”.  The “Now” CD has the regular version of the song and not one of the extended remixes.  I remember there were at least two performances of this song at my high school talent show my senior year.  What follows is the only song on the CD by a band named for a place.  Known more for their rockin’ and thoroughly produced loud music, Boston mellowed a bit for the mid-eighties hit “Amanda”.  It’s also the only song on the “Now” CD with someone’s name in the title.  I hadn’t heard of the next song before, though I had heard of the band.  I was “Lovesong” by Tesla, the only song on the “Now” CD by a band named for a physicist and a unit of measurement in physics.  Another hair band follows.  “Heaven” by Warrant was also one of the songs in the musical “Rock of Ages”.  The last song was unexpected but still a true classic power ballad.  When I was in high school Queensryche’s popularity was rising as the hair bands were fading.  But that doesn’t make the slow reflective “Silent Lucidity” any less of a power ballad.  This song was also performed at my high school talent show, though, more appropriately, only once.

Who knew there were so many and such a wide variety of classic power ballads.  About the only commonality other than their cathartic power is that they were all recorded by groups.  No track is credited to an individual person’s name for a recording.  I can’t think of many others that they could have included.  For me the CD wasn’t just a trip of cathartic power but a trip down memory lane.

At the puzzle party in March, the host showed us a shelf of books written by her late husband, Dr. Lawrence A. Cremin, Ph.D.  He was an education historian, professor, and past president of Teachers’ College at Columbia in New York City.  Among his books is a three-volume history of education in the U.S. from colonial times to 1980.  The second volume in this series, American Education: The National Experience 1783-1876 won a Pulitzer Prize in historical writing.  In all he has written at least ten books and co-authored several others.  One of his books, The Republic and the School was referenced in a book I had to read for school, American Education by Joel Spring.  I thought I would try reading at least one of his books both to sample our friend’s late husband’s work and because education is a topic that interests me.  The Cal State L.A. library has several of his books in its collection.  For my first try I picked the most recent and one of the shorter ones, Popular Education and Its Discontents.  I figured if I liked it I could try one of the longer ones later, and if I didn’t it was just a short read at 134 pages.  Since it was the most recent, I figured it would probably be most relevant to the current state of education in America.

Popular Education and Its Discontents is the expanded book form of the Inglis and Burton Lectures given by Dr. Cremin at Harvard University in March 1989.  In the preface he describes the book as “coda” to his American Education trilogy.  The book consists of three essays that I’m guessing correspond to the three lectures given.  The first is about the popularization of education: the progressive attempt to make education available to all and adapted to society’s diversity and the obstacles in accomplishing that.  The second is appropriately called “The Cacophony of Teaching” and it describes how education actually consists of school, family, and the media, mainly TV at the time.  I liked this essay best because its points are even more relevant today.  In addition to TV, students now have the Internet, cell phones, texting, and many other additions to the “cacophony”.  The third essay is about using education to enact public policy and social change.

Dr. Cremin presents the ideas of many other education scholars and studies such as John Dewey and the early 1980’s report “A Nation at Risk”.  He also presents his own thoughts and opinions that I found equally interesting and insightful such as the idea that the crisis isn’t the mediocrity of American education but “balancing the tremendous variety of demands Americans have made on their schools.” (Cremin p. 43)  He seems to have slightly more optimistic yet also more realistic views than the experts he references.  In the first essay he mentions that he was on Richard Heffner’s TV program The Open Mind to discuss whether the ideal of popular education was an impossible ideal or not.  I’ve never heard of that program and I wonder if the footage is still around somewhere.  In the “Cacophony” essay, Dr. Cremin has nothing but praise for the Children’s Television Workshop programs such as Sesame Street, The Electric Company, Square One TV, and 3-2-1 Contact.  I used to watch the latter three, though my peers would’ve made fun of me if they knew.  It’s nice to get some validation, albeit belated.

Though the book is insightful, readable and interesting, I wouldn’t categorize it with the relaxing escapist reading I normally do.  I’m glad Dr. Cremin didn’t use many fancy elitist academic words that I’ve seen in many journals and texts on education.  Probably the only word he used that I couldn’t figure out was “vitiation”.  My random house dictionary defines vitiate as 1) to impair the quality of, and 2) to make legally invalid.  He uses more “academic” forms of words such popularization and multitudeness.  But their meaning is clear and he often defines the words when first using them.  Some passages can be difficult to follow because he spends many pages explaining a long list of points.  (E.g. “First (long paragraph) . . . Second (another long paragraph).”  Sometimes he’ll switch between multiple points and I’m not sure where one stops and another starts.  When describing a crisis over progressive education in Pasadena, I wish he would have mentioned one of the points of contention in detail rather than only saying that the issues were “philosophical, social, and financial—they ranged from skepticism over the core curriculum to school rezoning.” (Cremin p. 88)  I wonder, what where they skeptical about in the core curriculum?  Still the book was much more readable than other books I’ve read by choice such as The Dictionary of English Literature.

Dr. Cremin presents many interesting ideas, both his own and those of other experts.  Many are historical such as how, through desegregation of schools, government sought to model the integrated idea would in the schools so it would eventually become the norm in society.  The expert referenced, Hannah Arendt did believe the plan would work because “the children would eventually return to a pre-existing world of adults who had been incapable of solving racial discrimination in the first place.” (Cremin p. 94)  Some ideas presented are counter-intuitive.  Christopher Jenks argued that education would not be effective against poverty and that only redistribution of income would be effective.  Dr. Cremin goes on to describe how education can help fight poverty, though it requires expensive and long-term support.  He also concludes that education alone cannot solve problems of international competitiveness.  To believe it could is to divert efforts away from those who can do something about it (p. 103).  Some ideas just make sense.  In “Cacophony” he states that schools cannot and should not be expected to satisfy all educational needs of students.  He begins “Cacophony” with a quote stating that students used to learn their highest knowledge in the classroom but now school seems to distract them from learning the higher knowledge outside of class.

Though it is nearly twenty years old, the book rarely seems dated.  It does refer to the now defunct Cold War when describing how the schools in the USSR are stratified by subject while the schools in the U.S. are stratified by quality.  Dr. Cremin mentions the emerging trend of standardization in education that has now reached a whole new level with the passage of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act.  He also predicts correctly that computers, communications media, and other technology will be used to an increasing extent in education.  He never mentions the Internet, but that was still some years away.  He also presents some ideas that are still not widely used in education.  There’s the sensible concept of teaching (motivating?) students to seek out educational opportunities on their own.  Even more radical is having the class as a whole be responsible for the performance of all its members rather than everyone getting individual grades.  I’m not sure about that one, though I have studied forms of group learning.  The early pages of the first essay contain an anecdote about a 1988 survey by the National Geographic Society measuring how many adults could name 13 countries on a map.  The president of the Society made a big show of presenting the results.  He said, “Have you heard of the lost generation? We have found them.”  But when this president was asked to name the U.S. states contiguous with Texas, he was unable to do so.  The story illustrates the likely common phenomenon of standards set for the young by adults that have been unable to unwilling to meet the standards themselves.  (p. 11)

Popular Education and its Discontents presents a thorough and multilayered picture of education in the U.S. that remains current to this day.  Unlike most academic texts it is readable and relevant, yet it’s also very insightful and contains some lesser known and complex ideas.  Dr. Cremin touches nearly all aspects of education: its history, competing forces, teaching techniques, goals, and the odds of meeting those goals.  I’ve learned as much or more from this text as I have from any other text on education.  I would have liked to have attended the lectures he gave twenty years ago.  It would be great if they had been recorded or filmed.  Every educator, future educator, and policymaker should read this book.  I’m sure it or some of his other books have been used in education courses.  I plan to try to read one of his other books, one of the trilogy.  I’m glad we have this personal connection.

(Spoiler alert)

I’ve know of Sherman Alexie for years and last year I read his collection of short stories called Ten Little Indians.  I enjoyed the stories and his writing.  He is very humorous.  My only complaints were that many stories made me feel nostalgic for Seattle and there were a few gratuitous R-rated passages.  I figured The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian wouldn’t have those drawbacks because 1) it is classified as a “young adult” novel and therefore less likely to have R-rated passages and 2) it takes place in an Indian Reservation that the characters call the “Rez” in eastern Washington State near Spokane and nowhere near Seattle.  I figured correctly on both counts and the book turned out to be much more than just devoid of those drawbacks.

As advertised the book does seem geared towards young adults and teenagers.  The protagonist telling the story in the first person is around 13-14 years old.  He uses short words and sentences, short paragraphs, and there’s a lot of dialogue.  The book is easy to read and it reads very quickly.  In addition to the words the book uses cartoons “drawn” by the main character to tell the story, though they were actually drawn by illustrator Ellen Forney.  They’re usually very humorous or profound and they aren’t always explained or referred to in the text.  They stand on their own as a substitute for the text and supplement to the story.  Each chapter is a vignette though there is a clear progression as the main character goes through his first year of high school.  He doesn’t always focus on the same topic.  It’s more like he’s talking to the reader in conversation.

The book had to pass the rule of 50 twice for me.  I initially checked out a copy from the Cal State L.A. library that was the large print or “blind” edition.  That passed the rule of 50 but then that copy was recalled by the library because someone had placed a hold on it.  I got another copy from the Covina Public Library that was the regular size print.  Page 50 of the blind edition corresponds to page 30-something of the regular edition.  That book also passed the rule of 50.

The title of the book is not an entirely true statement.  The book is fiction, though it’s partially based on the author’s life.  It takes place during current times, however.  I know this because the main character lists Dwayne Wade, Shane Battier, and Adam Morrison among his favorite basketball players.  Some of the dramatic events in the book really did occur in Alexie’s life.  Others are clearly sensationalism though they reveal some important lessons.  At that age, everything seems sensational.  The highs are higher and happier but the lows seem sadder, more dramatic, and darker.  There’s a lot about being an Indian in a Caucasian world, the differences between life on and off the “Rez”, friendships lost and found, family, tragedies, fun times, adjustment, and “fish out of water”.  But it’s all told so personally from the main character’s point of view.

The book imparts some lessons that were new to me.  The main character learns from another student that you’re supposed to read a book three times to truly understand it.  First you read it for the plot.  Then you read it for its history and its knowledge of history.  Then “You think about the meaning of each word and where the word came from.”  Other lessons weren’t new to me but reinforced.  The four “hugest” words that an adult can say to a kid are “You can do it.”  That sounds cheesy but it’s true.  The third lesson is in the following passage:

“I used to think the world was broken down by tribes,” I said. “By black and white.  By Indian and white.  But now I know that isn’t true.  The world is only broken into two tribes: the people who are assholes and the people who are not.” (Alexie, p. 176)

Overall, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is not entirely true, nor entirely realistic.  But it’s still an excellent story that is, at times, funny, sad, inspiring, and insightful.  It’s accessible enough for teenagers and subtly sophisticated enough for adults.  All teens and adults would enjoy it.