Book Review: Drowning in the Desert

Drowning in the Desert: A JAG's Search for Justice in Iraq

Those interested in the life of an army lawyer in combat will enjoy this personal narrative. Captain Vivian Gembarra goes to Iraq as the attorney for the 3d Brigade of the 4th Infantry Division in 2003. Her tale reveals a decent Soldier carrying considerable intellectual and human burdens. Gembarra's main difficulty lay in trying to get gung-ho infantry commanders to pay due attention to both the rules of war and of civility.

The book centers around a drowning incident presented by 1-8 Infantry Battalion commanded by the princely Nathan Sassaman. Sassaman's Soldiers pushed two Iraqi citizens off of a bridge and killed at least one other civilian in the adolescent style nurtured by Sassaman himself. The search for justice invoked by the title is unrealized when a particular military tendency to close ranks holds sway over the more important but difficult notion of abstract justice.

The case sits at the nexus of important issues - the laws of war, battle tension, the death of a beloved comrade, fighting spirit, respect for civilians, and a general's exercise of military command. Gembarra sets out the main threads in a sensitive and compelling fashion that, perhaps, tends too much toward John Grisham and not enough toward, say, John Marshall. While the book does get to big points about justice, it will seem to some that these points don't emerge until midway through the book, thus missing the chance for a more substantial discussion.

This intimate and at times charming personal story pursues justice in the style of a legal thriller, which will engage many readers. But the book implies a greater aim that will leave other readers, this one for example, frustrated.

The chief military officer is then Major General Raymond Odierno. Gembarra sets out what is at least a circumstantial case for the general's poor judgment owing perhaps, to his too-great affection for the person Nate Sassaman as well as his toogreat sympathy for infantry Soldiers who lost their bearings. The punishments he oversaw, and the punishments he did not pursue, leave room to wonder about his commitment to the rules of land warfare and about his respect for human rights.

I came to respect Gembarra, and it is easy to understand why an author might choose to set out the facts leaving readers to draw their own conclusions, but a book with the words "Search for Justice" in its title might have pushed harder.

----

More book reviews

More book news