Military Bookshelf: Warriors & War

Military.com - Tom Miller

Sep 15, 2008

In a Time of War: The Proud and Perilous Journey of West Point's Class of 2002,
by Bill Murphy, Jr.  Henry Holt, $27.50 (365p) ISBN 978-0-8050-8679-9

In 1989, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Rick Atkinson published The Long Gray Line, an account of the journey through war and peace of the West Point Class of 1966.  Poignant and powerful, it has become a classic and perhaps the best book ever written on West Point. 

Journalist and former Army Reserve officer Murphy borrows Atkinson's template for this absorbing and sobering account of the West Point Class of 2002, the first class to graduate into war since the Vietnam years. 

Following the Atkinson model, Murphy focuses on the experiences of a relative handful of 2002 grads:  among them, California "surfer dude" Todd Bryant, gentle giant Tim Moshier, southerners Will Tucker and Drew Sloan, varsity swimmer Tricia Le Roux, Matt Homa, and Dave Swanson. 

When the Class of 2002 entered West Point, the nation was at peace and there were no discernible threats on the horizon.  Saddam Hussein rattled his gilded cage occasionally and terrorists struck at U.S. targets overseas, but those were put down as nuisances in a world dominated by a single superpower.  So, for their first three years at the Academy, the cadets of the Class of 2002—West Point's bicentennial class—trained for wars that they didn't expect to fight.

All that changed on 9/11.  And, with the nation at war again, few could expect to be effected more than the Academy's future officers.  They would be the young lieutenants and captains leading platoons and commanding companies and would inevitably shoulder the burden of the coming combat.  As that new reality sank in, the milestones of the Class of 2002's final year at the Academy—Branch Night, Post Night, 100th Night, and Graduation Week—took place against a somber backdrop of war in Afghanistan and a gathering war in Iraq. 

Following graduation and commissioning, one after another, the new officers finished their initial training, joined their units, and deployed overseas.  Will Tucker and Matt Homa were among the first wave into Iraq in 2003.  Todd Bryant, Dave Swanson, and Tricia Le Roux followed. 

Bryant had barely settled in country when he was killed in an IED attack—the first member of the Class of 2002 to be killed in action.  Back at Ft. Riley, Kan., his young widow Jen, struggling to cope, swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills but survived. 

Drew Sloan joined the 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii and deployed to Afghanistan where he suffered a grievous head wound in an ambush.  Two years and twelve surgeries later, he volunteered to deploy to Iraq.  

Tim Moshier branched aviation, and because flight training is an eighteen-month marathon, he deployed to Iraq later than most of his classmates.  Assigned to a staff job, he flew infrequently to spell tired pilots.  On one of those missions, he was killed when his Apache attack helicopter was downed by a shoulder-fired missile.  He left behind a young widow and an infant daughter. 

Struggling with frequent deployments—Will Tucker served three combat tours in five years of service—and the grief over their classmates' untimely deaths, many of the Class of 2002 left the Army at the end of their five-year commitment in 2007.  Others soldier on despite the relentless grind of training and deployments. 

Murphy tells the story of the Class of 2002 with subtle passion and eloquent compassion. What emerges most clearly is an unforgettable group portrait of service and sacrifice—haunting and uplifting at once.  
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Where War Lives,
by Paul Watson.  Modern Times, $25.95 (400p) ISBN 978-1-59486-957-0

Ever wonder why so few Americans trust journalists?   

Part of the answer is on display in Watson's self-serving memoir.  Watson, a veteran war correspondent best known for his photo of a U.S. soldier being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu, Somalia, sets out on this journey through "a dozen conflicts on several continents" primarily to assuage his own feelings of guilt. 

That's a big part of modern journalism's problem: The journalist too often becomes the story.  The end instead of the means.  It becomes apparent early on that the star of Where War Lives is Paul Watson and not war.  War is just a way of understanding Watson.   

Watson also believes that he is uniquely qualified to enlighten the rest of us.  Forget that journalists are observers, not participants in events.  Forget that studies show that journalism majors are among the least qualified students academically.  I don't know where this journalistic hubris comes from, but it isn't credible? 

Watson, a native of Canada, was an indifferent student, heavy drug user and all-purpose rebel growing up.  After journalism school, he went to work for the Toronto Star.  "[A]ching to go to war," he used his vacation time to cover conflicts in Eritrea, Angola, and Somalia.

It was in Somalia that he snapped the photo of Army Sgt. William David Cleveland's violated corpse being dragged through the streets by a mob.  He claims that he "had no choice that day" but to take the photo.  Otherwise, the world would have been denied "the truth." 

That's an interesting assertion since Watson notes elsewhere that "War taught me that truth is a moving target."  How could he be sure that what he was recording in that moment was "the truth?"

He also claims that afterward he was "consumed by anger, fear, and shame."  But, he went to extraordinary lengths to get the photo out of Somalia and feared that it wouldn't be published.  Is there a contradiction here, or is it just me?  Years later, desperate for exoneration, Watson traveled to Arizona searching for Sgt. Cleveland's mother, who refused to see him. 

Of course, Watson wasn't so ashamed of his actions that he rejected the Pulitzer Prize that came with the photo.  Nor does his shame prevent him from using it to promote his book.  Shame isn't what it used to be. 

The photo also gave his career a big boost as the Star promoted him to the foreign staff.  Over the next few years, he covered the Rwandan genocide, the civil war in Kashmir, and the low-grade conflict in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.  In 1998, he joined the L.A. Times, which sent him to Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

A self-described "war junkie," Watson describes the pull of war as an "aphrodisiac" and "a fiery seductress."  In that context, his woe-is-me reaction to being diagnosed with "chronic depression and post-traumatic stress disorder" seems less than genuine.  So does the fact that he jumps right back into the fire. 

So, has he learned anything that makes this journey worthwhile?  Well, he thinks so.  We've already seen that war has taught him that "truth is a moving target."  That's for you and me though, not for Watson.  We are the unwary victims of the Pentagon's spin machine.  He, of course, sees things for what they are.     

He also learned that "[w]ar does not conquer evil."  Huh?  Tell that to the troops who liberated the Nazi concentration camps.  Tell it to the hundreds of thousands of Chinese, Koreans, and Filipinos raped and murdered by the Japanese. 

Finally, he finds the ultimate source of all war: it "lives in all of us."  Who knew?  Don't journalism students study history, philosophy, religion, and literature?  That concept is as old as history.   

Don't read this if you hope to discover anything new about war.  Do read it if you want to understand why journalists are held in such low regard by so many.

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Copyright 2008 by Tom Miller