Can you say whether you gave money to Feith and his publisher, or did you maybe just check it out from a library that had already bought it?

Gen. William Slim who wrote easily the best general officer memoir of World War 2 and Gen. U.S. Grant whose memoir of the Civil War was also superb are the exceptions to the general rule that senior officer memoirs are commonly useless as reliable artifacts of history. Sometimes published diaries (usually with redactions) are very interesting and might give background and context to controversial issues such as Gen. Sir Alan Brook’s famous diary kept during WW2.

There can't be one without the other and you have to experience both to know the difference. Therefore I don't think you wasted time, Tom.

Shit, now I have to admit even watching that abortion of a movie The Hurt Locker was worth something. Hoisted upon my own petard. Sigh.

Having said that I found both Finkel's The Good Soldiers and Exum's This Man's Army lacking. They don't sink anywhere near the level of the books you have listed here....but they still left me cold and wanting more...they had good points but they missed...a point, a purpose, a raison d'etre, a thesis and conclusion.

But "Generation Kill" by Evan Wright needs to be on the worst list.

Its not out yet, but it will full of frabrictions, spin and shiney BS.
The memoirs of George W. Bush.

I have been hearing rumors the past couple of years that Rumsfeld is working on a memoir where he says he opposed the invasion of Iraq. That should be good for some laughs but not much more than that.

And Tom, that is why sometimes I like to distinguish between books I have read and books I have read myself. Had to read Bremer and Franks myself, but not Feith. Please, no.

I realize I'm talking about Tom's employer, but having been a Marine infantry officer I have to say that One Bullet Away is a totally sanitized account of what it's like to be a platoon commander, seemingly written solely to advance the author's future viability. And mission accomplished on that. Not saying what's there isn't true, just that Fick is REALLY selective about what's there. So, in the end it's not an honest book. Evan Wright was a lot more honest in Generation Kill, in that he actually reported what he saw. It's just that since (as a civilian reporter with zero understanding of the military) he had no idea what he was seeing, in any context, all his conclusions are wrong.

This is a "I know a guy who knew a guy" kind of thing, so take it for what it's worth.

I knew a lot of the Soldiers that worked with Williams during the events described in her book. According to them, she has a much different, and heroic, view of events and her conduct than the truth.

I know, I know. Truth is perception, but if your half-dozen squaddies perceive of things one way and you perceive it the other, the "one of these things is not like the others" rule applies.

For what it's worth.

I thew up a little in my mouth when I saw that one in the bookstore.

Myers punched all the right tickets, shook all the right hands, and seemed to keep his mouth shut while things went south in Iraq. Bland, passive writing with no names or accountability. It was as if all command decisions were made by a magic eightball.

I know this is a "worst of" list but I have one to top the "best of" list...My War by Colby Buzzell. I picked this book up and seriously couldn't put it down. This guy really tells it like it is and he really seems like a great guy. This whole thing just sucks though...one kid I grew up with was killed over there and another one is going back and forth to Iraq. And he's in SF so they'll never stop sending him over there.

...Jarhead did not particularly please me. Who knew not fighting could cause so much angst?

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I am really disheartened by TR's constant banging of the Grant/Sherman drum. Not because of their abilities - they were considerable, though not quite in the realm of genius - but because of their memoirs.

Both Grant and Sherman were enormously deceptive in their memoirs. They took credit for things they did not do and assigned blame for their own mistakes elsewhere. Sherman's Atlanta campaign was littered with critical mistakes; only the incompetency of Joseph Johnston made the campaign a success. Phil Sheridan, another of Grant and Sherman's favored sons, had but one major success - the Shenandoah campaign, when he indeed kicked the living hell out of Jubal Early in Stonewall's old hunting grounds. The rest of the war, Sheridan was a fiery but not particularly accomplished brigadier in the western army, and a outright disaster as head of the Army of the Potomac's cavalry corps (killing JEB Stuart notwithstanding). Yet Sheridan is legendary behind only Grant and Sherman themselves. Warren, Rosecrans, and others received the negative side of this treatment, with varying degrees of deservedness.

Without question, however, the worst treatment was meted out to Gen. George Thomas. Thomas was possibly the finest commander of the war on either side, yet the Grant/Sherman-approved description of Thomas is a capable defensive tactician, yet too ponderous on the attack and incapable of grand strategic design. This could not be further from the truth - see Benson Bobrick's work on Thomas for more details. Grant and Sherman allowed personal jealousy and insecurity about their accomplishments to motivate them to distort the historical record. The victors do indeed write the history, and in Grant and Sherman's case, they were determined that only their band of victors be allowed to share in the glory. It is the ultimate shame that two great men, saviors of the Union, allowed themselves to stoop to such petty levels.

Nonetheless, the constant waxing poetically about the greatness of Grant's memoirs is a major mistake. It'd be nice to see TR take as critical a look at something one of his professed "favorite" generals wrote as he does at the works of the incompetents and ne'er do wells on the list above.

Regards,

Matt

And as far as self-serving Iraq memoirs go, I'm forgoing eating for some time because I know Meghan O'Sullivan is working on a "How I Saved the Administration, Military, and Iraq From Themselves and Created the Surge" book, and I'd rather just have some dry heaves over that opus, rather than a full-scale cookies-tossing.

I particularly love the false modesty of "American Soldier". The cover includes a picture of Tommy Franks surrounded by troops which looks like it was designed to remind readers of Gen. Eisenhower's famous visit to troops of the 101st Airborne on the evening prior to D-Day.

By far the most pompous ignorant "Gator", "Matthew Alexander" strives to make us believe that this Air Force Major and his rag-tag team of expert questioners were responsible for FM 2-22.3, Once More he tries to lead you to believe it was his actions alone that enabled McChrystal drop two 500-pound JDAMs on Zarqawi (at least Sergeant Maddox's claim for finding Hussein is warranted and was given a Legion of Merit to prove it). What urks me the most is the premise to the book is "the interrogator who used brains and not torture to accomplish his mission", well in one chapter he himself violates Geneva Conventions *SPOILER* By shredding a letter a detainee wrote to his wife which had no intelligence value, so by law that letter was to be passed to the Red Cross for delivery. Plus it's my longstanding opinion that anyone who leaves redacted text in their book (the long black bars) is a douche.

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While this topic makes for an interesting debate, it doesn't improve my Iraq war memoir reading list. If you haven't already done it, how about a top ten list?

Different Iraq war, but I felt that Swofford's entire purpose with that book was to make Marines and the military look as bad as possible. I've disliked some other books on the Iraq war (Joker One, the last 200 pages of One Bullet Away compared to Gen. Kill, Love my Rifle) but this is the only one I've hated.

Also, totally agree on the titles.

I had a thought on this question though, why separate Afghanistan from Iraq? In my mind, on my website, I group the whole bunch as "post-9/11 war memoirs." The two wars are inextricably linked, the same way Friedman in "War I always Wanted" and Fick "One Bullet Away" served in both theaters, the same way my brother is now.

The commenter right above asked for recommendations, I'll give mine. "Soft Spots" by Van Winkle, and "The War I Always Wanted" by Friedman. Van Winkle, in particular, is the best writer in the bunch.

Anyways, got to check out some of these policy maker memoirs, though I'm sure I'll feel just like Tom.

John Keegan's, "The Iraq War", was an execrable piece of pseudo-history, written over 2003 and finished before the end of the year, clearly both in an effort to *sell books* as soon as possible (even when the actual details of the war are inconvenient to your publishing timeline), and also to make sure he established himself as the first "real war historian" to put something out.

Published in early 2004, its sin is that of omission and oversimplification; he compresses the beginning, the "Casus Belli", into a few short pages that does nothing to provide any context for the war; in fact, he pretty much provides nothing but an executive summary of a few details between 1993-2003. Saddam invaded Kuwait; coalition forces stopped him; Clinton had no-fly zone; 9/11 happened; WMD search inconclusive - however Saddamn uncooperative; therefore US invades.

He skips over the fact that even the UN inspectors were unsupportive of the claims, that the UN resolution issue was left unresolved, that no connection to 9/11 existed or was ever even convincingly argued... and so on. He boils down the buildup to the war - or even explaining the competition with the conflict in Afghanistan - into a few simple sentences that make NY Post headlines seem nuanced and insightful. Totally unworthy of a guy who has written so many incredible books of war history.

Then 90% of the book concerns itself with the movements of a a few armored divisions. There's nothing about the allied soldiers on the ground, any detailed attempt to understand the composition of the Fedayeen Saddam or their tactics, no interviews with soldiers to get more on-the-ground reality. Maybe a quote here and there, but basically its nothing but filler with no content.

The end is neatly wrapped up with the fall of Baghdad, and almost no mention made of the looting, rioting, uprising in Najaf, instability in Fallujah, and so on. He artificially ends it like, "and that's how they won the war! The end". As a work of history, it is criminally insufficient, and I think totally self serving to have been published. Compare it to say, Cobra II? Its a joke. Yes, it was intended to be more an analysis of military plan, strategy, and execution from a general's eye-view, but that sort of book ignores the fact that the actual land-battle to reach Baghdad was pretty much likely to ever only be less than 1/10th of the problems we were likely to face there. Rather than call it "The Iraq War", the book should be called "Iraq, 2003", because that's all he tells you about.

I hate on this book largely because Keegan is such a master of war history, and also because I felt anyone reading it would be so poorly served. He could have written a much better book, and should have. Even if he limited himself to the buildup and the first year, he could have written a great book. There were so many unforeseen issues and complex political relations that he could have written many chapters just on the political cat-and-mouse around WMD's. But he doesn't, he skips over the interesting stuff, and focuses entirely on over-detailed analysis of which brigade went where on what day and who the commanders were, and what the weather was like and when did they decide to take this road instead of that road, and how fast were they moving and what logistics units were attached to who and so on and so on. You can still get that stuff in many other books, albeit with some actual *thinking* included. Seriously, the book is zero out of 5.

OK, this is my suck-up to Tom Ricks. This was a great book about the Corps and I don't think a Marine could have done it; too close to the subject. Ricks had his finger on the pulse of Marines like no one I've ever read.
So can I keep my free subscription now, Tom?
Semper Fi from an ancient corporal