Readers interested in the essential work of military special forces will be inspired by McRaven’s adventures.
A retired four-star admiral serves up a readable memoir that’s long on blood and guts—including those of Osama bin Laden.
McRaven (Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life...And Maybe the World, 2017) grew up a military brat—and a Texan when his father was sent to San Antonio after suffering a mild stroke (“something to do with cigarettes and Jim Beam whiskey, the doctor would say”). He also grew up in the 1960s under the influence of James Bond movies and The Man from U.N.C.L.E., all of which would come into play when the young Navy ensign applied to become a SEAL, “reportedly the toughest physical training in the entire military.” Certainly the drill instructors worked McRaven hard; of an entering class of 155, he writes, only 33 completed training and became SEALs. He himself would serve longer than any other SEAL, rising to become the commander of the entire U.S. Special Operations Forces. His book is anecdotal but without many surprises for anyone with military experience, but his account of finding and killing bin Laden is one of the best in the literature, told from the eagle’s-eye viewpoint of one who oversaw the entire operation. There his story shines, full of twists and turns ranging from the politics of the military’s engagement with the intelligence community (“those CIA officers who disliked SOF the most seemed to be our staunchest supporters”) to confirming that it was indeed bin Laden the SEALs and other special ops troops had killed. (McRaven recounts ordering a 6-foot-2 SEAL to lie next to the corpse of the 6-foot-4 bin Laden to be sure that they’d gotten the right guy.) It’s a story with many heroes but of cold professionalism as well; as the author tells it, “I had no sense of relief, no internal exhilaration, no feeling of victory,” not until his men were safely home.
Readers interested in the essential work of military special forces will be inspired by McRaven’s adventures.Pub Date: May 21, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5387-2974-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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