(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)
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)
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