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American Soldier (Paperback)
by Tommy R. Franks
| Category:
War on terrorism, Generalship, Memoir |
| Market price: ¥ 178.00
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¥ 168.00
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| MSL Pointer Review:
A military memoir with grand scope and important insights. |
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Author: Tommy R. Franks
Publisher: Regan Books; Reprint edition
Pub. in: April, 2005
ISBN: 0060779543
Pages: 590
Measurements: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.7 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BA00647
Other information: ISBN-13: 978-0060779542
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- Awards & Credential -
The #1 New York Times Bestseller. |
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- MSL Picks -
American Soldier, by Tommy Franks, is the memoir of the four-star general who was in charge of the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) at the start of the 21st century wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Malcolm McConnell is credited as co-author. The book covers the whole span of Franks' life, including his boyhood in central Oklahoma, his enlistment in the Army and tour of duty in Vietnam, his post-Vietnam Cold War service in Germany, his experience as a brigadier general in the Gulf War, his term as CENTCOM commander-in-chief, the post-9/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and his activities after retiring from the Army.
This is a story with an epic scope, and it is told well by Franks and McConnell. Despite the book's hefty size (about 600 pages), I found it to be a swift and engaging read. The fascinating main text is supplemented by maps, a glossary of military terms and acronyms, an index, and many photographs, both color and black-and-white. Franks just doesn't recall the events of his life; he also raises some critical issues and offers some well-stated opinions on them. Particularly resonant is his stress on the importance of joint cooperation between the different branches of the U.S.'s military; Franks strongly condemns the "service parochialism" that he sees as hindering this critical "jointness." Franks also celebrates the potential of advancing technology to give today's military commanders "the kind of Olympian perspective that Homer had given his gods." But despite this appreciation of technology, Franks emphasizes the importance of such old-fashioned military values as leadership and loyalty. The articulation of Franks' overall military philosophy helps to bind together the overall narrative of his life.
Franks' voice in this memoir is often feisty and opinionated. And while the book is consistently interesting and readable, at times it seemed to have a flavor of personal bias and political slant that I found disagreeable. At points in the book he seemed to be trying too hard to justify the decision to go to war in Iraq when and how the U. S. did. And his portrait of George W. Bush often reads like inappropriate flattery. Such moments in the book may hurt Franks' credibility as a memoirist for some readers.
That criticism aside, there is much to admire in this epic life story. I was particularly intrigued by Franks' stories of encounters with many remarkable world leaders - Marine Corps General Tony Zinni, his immediate predecessor as CENTCOM chief; Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf; U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell; King Abdullah II of Jordan; and more. Also worthy of note is Franks' view of the role of the media in 21st-century war. The book contains some really gripping scenes. Over the course of the memoir I saw not only one soldier's life, but also got a sense of the evolution of America's army over the span of decades. American Soldier is a book that I would recommend to both military professionals and civilian readers.
(From quoting Michael Mazza, USA)
Target readers:
Readers interested in the American war on terrorism, American politics after 9/11, generalship, and modern war practices.
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General Tommy Franks retired from the Army on August 1, 2003. Commissioned a Second Lieutenant in 1967 as a distinguished graduate of the Artillery Officer Candidate School, Fort Sill, Oklahoma, he was assigned to the 9th Infantry Division, Republic of Vietnam. He also served as an Assistant Division Commander during Operations Desert Shield/Desert Storm. General Franks has been awarded three Defense Distinguished Service Medals, two Distinguished Service Medals, and four Legion of Merit awards. His other decorations include three Purple Hearts, three Bronze Stars, an Air Medal, and an Army Commendation Medal - all with "V" for valor. In 2004 he was named a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire. General Franks lives with his wife, Cathy, in Tampa, Florida.
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From Publisher
The Commander in Chief of the United States Central Command from July 2000 through July 2003, General Tommy Franks made history by leading American and Coalition forces to victory in Afghanistan and Iraq - the decisive battles that launched the war on terrorism.
In this riveting memoir, General Franks retraces his journey from a small-town boyhood in Oklahoma and Midland, Texas, through a lifetime of military service - including his heroic tour as an Artillery officer in Vietnam, where he was wounded three times. A reform-minded Cold War commander and a shrewd tactician during Operation Desert Storm, Franks took command of CENTCOM at the dawn of what he calls a ""crease in history"" - becoming the senior American military officer in the most dangerous region on earth.
Now, drawing on his own recollections and military records declassified for this book, Franks offers the first true insider's account of the war on terrorism that has changed the world since September 11, 2001. He puts you in the Operations Center for the launch of Operation Enduring Freedom just weeks after 9/11, capturing its uncertain early days and the historic victory that followed. He traces his relationship with the demanding Donald Rumsfeld, as early tensions over the pace of the campaign gave way to a strong and friendly collaboration.
When President Bush focused world attention on the threat of Iraq, Franks seized the moment to implement a bold new vision of joint warfare in planning Operation Iraqi Freedom. Rejecting Desert Storm-style massive troop deployment in favor of flexibility and speed, Franks was questioned by the defense establishment - including Secretary of State Colin Powell. Yet his vision was proven on the ground: Within three weeks, Baghdad had fallen.
American Soldier is filled with revelation. Franks describes the covert diplomacy that helped him secure international cooperation for the war, and reveals the role of foreign leaders - and a critical double agent code-named ""April Fool"" - in the most successful military deception since D-Day in 1944. He speaks frankly of intelligence shortcomings that endangered our troops, and of the credible WMD threats - including eleventh-hour warnings from Arab leaders - that influenced every planning decision. He offers an unvarnished portrait of the ""disruptive and divisive"" Washington bureaucracy, and a candid assessment of the war's aftermath. Yet in the end, as American Soldier demonstrates, the battles in Afghanistan and Iraq remain heroic victories - wars of liberation won by troops whose valor was ""unequalled,"" Franks writes, ""by anything in the annals of war.""
Few individuals have the chance to contribute so much of themselves to the American story as General Tommy Franks. In American Soldier, he captures it all.
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| View all 10 comments |
Donald Rumsfeld (Former American Secretary of Defense) (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-21 00:00>
When war comes, you look for certain special qualities in the people you'll be working with. General Tom Franks embodies those qualities: strength, experience, a keen mind, energy, honor, good humor, and a deep loyalty to his troops and to his country. Tom Franks is truly a soldier's soldier. |
Max Boot (The Washington Post) (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-21 00:00>
The Romans let victorious generals keep slaves and other spoils of war. The British showered them with noble titles and country estates. In free-market America, we've outsourced the job of rewarding our war heroes to the private sector, where they get cushy corporate board seats, lucrative speaking engagements and fat contracts for their memoirs.
Gen. Tommy Franks, who as head of U.S. Central Command presided over the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, has duly produced the expected autobiography. It is a good read, thanks to the work of veteran ghostwriter Malcolm McConnell; the early sections on Franks's blue-collar upbringing and Vietnam service are particularly affecting. But it has not made as much of a media splash as some other accounts of the administration, because it is not hostile to George W. Bush.
To the contrary, American Soldier rebuts some criticisms directed against the president. Bush has been accused, for instance, of taking his eye off Afghanistan by ordering the plan for a possible war with Iraq in the fall of 2001. Franks writes that, given the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, this was a sensible request, and that "our mission in Afghanistan never suffered" as a result.
Scores of pundits have accused the administration of lying, or at least distorting the evidence, about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. But Franks reveals that the leaders of Egypt and Jordan told him that Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons. Though no weapon of mass destruction was ever found, he writes, "I do not regret my role in disarming Iraq and removing its Baathist regime."
Another charge made against the administration is that political appointees failed to give the generals enough troops in either Afghanistan or Iraq. In fact, Franks writes, it was his own choice to employ limited forces in order to avoid getting bogged down. Instead of relying on sheer size, he thought surprise and speed were the keys to victory - a judgment largely vindicated by events.
In general (so to speak), Franks is complimentary about his bosses. Vice President Dick Cheney is praised for asking questions that "consistently cut to the core of the issue at hand." Bush comes across as a "confident" and "decisive" leader who refused to let politics intrude into his decision-making. When White House chief of staff Andrew Card brought up the issue of the 2002 elections as a factor in planning for war with Iraq, Bush reportedly snapped, "That is no consideration at all... Timing will have nothing to do with congressional elections or polls." Franks did become exasperated at times with the "genetically impatient" Donald Rumsfeld, but ultimately decided that he and the defense secretary made an effective team.
Not all is sweetness and light in American Soldier. Franks comes off as a bit tetchy. He complains in particular when the Joint Chiefs of Staff get involved in any operational issues that lie outside their jurisdiction. He accuses the chiefs of being focused only on their "parochial" service concerns, of leaking secrets to the press, wasting his time and offering "gratuitous" advice. In one extraordinary episode, he cusses out the Navy and Marine chiefs, Adm. Vern Clark and Gen. James Jones, in language that can't be reprinted here.
A particular target of his ire is Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, whom he denounces as the "dumbest [expletive] guy on the planet" and "a theorist whose ideas were often impractical," without offering any examples. He adds, however, that "Rumsfeld never allowed Feith to interfere in my business." This - along with the fact that Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz barely rates a mention in this book - should help dispel the popular myth that a cabal of neoconservatives led by Wolfowitz and Feith has been running the war on terrorism. Actually Franks was the one in operational control until July 2003, and he offers not a single instance where Rumsfeld, Feith or any other politico forced him to do anything he didn't want to do.
Perhaps they should have. American Soldier reveals numerous blind spots: Franks never discusses why he didn't send more U.S. soldiers to cut off al Qaeda fighters escaping Tora Bora in December 2003 or Ba'athists fleeing to the Sunni Triangle in April 2004. Nor does he seriously ponder what more he could have done to foster a secure postwar environment in Iraq and Afghanistan. One of the "impractical" suggestions from Feith that he disregarded, we now know, was to rally Iraqis to assist in their country's liberation. More than a year later, the United States continues to pay a heavy price for not having mobilized sufficient Iraqi security forces early on.
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David Nicholas (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-21 00:00>
Soldiers, especially generals, often find themselves second-guessed. These days, these armchair generals (I'm the first to admit I'm one of them, albeit a (hopefully) objective one) pick apart every decision a particular general makes, in an attempt to prove that, if no one else had been available, "they" could have done a better job. Tommy Franks, commander of CENTCOM during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, has become the latest version of this phenomenon, which has seemingly snowballed in recent years. No one ever dared dissect George Patton or Douglas MacArthur's maneuvers publicly during World War II. If anyone had, they'd have gone to jail... or better yet, Patton might have shot them with that pistol of his. Franks is from a different generation, though, so every decision he makes is under a microscope the minute it's known publicly.
The adopted son of a poor couple, a father who had many jobs and his wife who sold pies to help pay the bills, Franks grew up in Oklahoma and Texas, and flunked out of college in the latter. Deciding to shape himself up, he joined the army as a private in 1965, graduating from Officer Candidate School two years later. He did a year in Viet Nam, came home and married the girl he'd been dating, and stayed in the army, eventually, because they paid for his return to college. As he rose throug the ranks, he continued to reevaluate his position every year or three, thinking each time that he'd retire and enter the private sector, making his wife happy because they could stop moving. The army thwarted this by continuing to promote him right up through the ranks until he reached four stars.
The heart of the book is the discussions of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Franks has a very frank approach to critics and criticism: he brushes it aside very brusquely. According to him, the main decisions made during the war were made for very pragmatic reasons, and the battles that were fought were generally successful. Issues such as the presence of WMD in Iraq are discussed in detail. Franks' view is that "everyone" thought Saddam Hussein had at least chemical and biological weapons prior to the war, even the French and the Germans. Those countries just didn't think it was worth provoking Saddam over. Having liberated the country, however, it's become rather simple: Saddam isn't on the throne any more, and that's a good thing, regardless.
Both of the wars Franks fought are the subject of much controversy. Afghanistan appears to be a failure, according to critics, until Osama dies. When he does, I'm sure the same critics will say that Osama never mattered, and somehow raise the bar elsewhere, so that the war can be judged a failure. Iraq will continue to be a failure as long as the Iraqi insurgents have the idea that if they kill just a few more American soldiers, the rest will leave.
The one thing I do take issue with, in terms of General Franks' practice of warfare, is a seemingly mundane one: he doesn't sleep very much during much of the crisis portions of the book. It's rather famous that then General Montgomery went to sleep as the Battle of El Alamein started, and later said he slept like a baby. Franks, by contrast, never seems to sleep much at all. I'm not entirely certain that this is a good example: I think that a good night's sleep is important for anyone, including a general who makes decisions that affect thousands of people.
That aside, this is an interesting book, and I enjoyed it a great deal. It's a bit indistinct with regards to military units and maneuvers, and the end is a bit hurried, but other than that it's well-written. |
D. Thurlow (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-21 00:00>
American Soldier is a plain-spoken and highly readable account of General Tommy Franks's long career in uniform, from his tour in Vietnam in the late 1960's through the last years of the Cold War and the first Gulf War, through his concluding assignment as Commander, U. S. Central Command, during the opening years of the Global War on Terrorism. Franks and his collaborator, Malcolm McConnell, capture a highly authentic flavor of life in the service over that long span of time.
Inevitably, the planning and execution of Operations Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and Iraqi Freedom in Iraq dominate the narrative. Within the limits of unclassified information, Franks provides a remarkably honest account of the challenging task to put together these operations, something the average reader has probably forgetten. The operations as finally executed represented a radical departure from the conventional military operations of the Cold War and serve as a template for the Department of Defense's ongoing transformation. These operations have fairly been called the first wars of the Information Age, and the leveraging of information and other new technologies is spelled out in Franks' narrative. The forces under Franks' control achieved remarkable results with far fewer troops than anyone had previously imagined was possible.
American Soldier draws to a close before the full dimensions of the challenge of stabilizing Iraq had become apparent, so the storyline is somewhat incomplete. Franks is unapologetic about his accomplishments and about the full contact interaction with the Bush Administration through which strategic planning was and is properly done. Implicit in Franks narrative is a reminder of how inherently messy military operations always are, and how plans rarely if ever survive intact their first contact with the enemy.
This book is highly recommended to the student of the military art, as well as to those curious about Tommy Franks himself. |
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