ARVN: Life and Death in the South Vietnamese Army by Robert K. Brigham. University Press of Kansas (http://www.kansaspress.ku.edu), 2502 Westbrooke Circle, Lawrence, Kansas 66045-4444, 2006, 250 pages, $29.95 (hardcover).

The Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) never became a fully legitimate arm of the government of Vietnam because of misguided policies, poor leadership, and a failure to create a Vietnamese army with origins in and connections to Vietnamese culture and history. Robert K. Brigham makes his case convincingly in this welcomed postrevisionist monograph on a maligned army. He does so, not with recycled English-language sources but with documents from the Vietnamese Archive in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnamese-language books and memoirs, and dozens of interviews of ARVN veterans. Indeed, Brigham only used oral histories he could corroborate with other sources.

Among the strengths of this book are the author’s analyses of ARVN conscription and the relationship among the draft, morale, and family life. Conscription was nothing new to Vietnam, but historically it had been molded to the rhythms and requirements of family and agricultural life through terms not exceeding one year. When the ARVN increased the term to two years in pursuit of a stronger army, village agriculture and family life suffered severely from the loss of the backbone of the labor force. Consequently, the government prevented soldiers from fulfilling obligations to their families, forcing them to behave in a way that is shameful within that culture. Morale plummeted. By the late 1960s, soldiers brought their families with them to encampments or shantytowns so they could care for each other.

Army life discouraged the soldiers because they did not receive adequate weapons and combat training prior to field operations, and the government made no effort to explain in political and cultural terms the reasons why they needed to sacrifice and fight for the government and idea of South Vietnam. This was the policy of Ngo Dinh Diem and his successors. They feared that a nationalistic, patriotic, and motivated ARVN might someday hold them accountable for corruption, failed policies, and the like. The ARVN was notorious for a high desertion rate, but Brigham points out that perhaps “only 20 to 30 percent of the soldiers listed as deserters actually were” skirting their duties out of fear or malice (p. 48). Over half of the deserters actually served in units to which they were not assigned. Many deserted to see their families and eventually returned to their units. Brigham thus accomplishes one of his goals: dispelling ill-founded conclusions with sound analyses.

In analyzing why the ARVN soldiers fought—in spite of poor training, poverty-level pay, and abject facilities—Brigham arrives at several inferences. Because training and training facilities were so substandard, a conscript initially experienced alienation. He would be away from his family for years, and the ARVN lacked the spirit to function as a substitute family. Interviewees asked, “How can you build a nation without a well-trained army that knows why it is fighting and then gets to fight?” They also asserted that they did not fight for their buddies because the ARVN’s small units lacked closeness and cohesion. Brigham concludes that soldiers fought on behalf of their families.

He observes that the ARVN displayed better fighting skill, endurance, and effectiveness than it is commonly credited for. The discussion of the Battle of Ap Bac is excellent, and Brigham notes a couple of battles in which the ARVN fought very well, one of which Military Assistance Command-Vietnam called “a brilliant performance” (p. 94). Unfortunately, the author devotes only 28 pages to an assessment of the army’s abilities in combat. Although he defends the South Vietnamese performance during Tet, that offensive receives only two pages. Brigham scarcely mentions Lam Son 719 (a single sentence), and the 1972 Easter Offensive gets two paragraphs of coverage. Although he did not intend to analyze specific battles or the ARVN’s performance in battle, a fuller coverage of battle would have strengthened his thesis that by the early 1970s, soldiers fought to keep their families together. Armies exist to fight. The topics of this book—conscription, family life, morale, training, and politics—all influenced the fighting effectiveness of the ARVN. An analysis of its battle performance would have completed his social history of the ARVN by more thoroughly tracing the connections between society and culture and the army’s deeds in war. The historiography of the Vietnam War still awaits the definitive history of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. Perhaps Professor Brigham will satisfy this need with a second edition of his most recent work.

Glaring defects are rare in this book. Brigham states that “from 1969 until 1973 the Nixon administration launched one of the most massive air campaigns in history” (p. 100). Actually, that air campaign did not become “massive” until March of 1972. Only 2,107 “attack” sorties occurred over North Vietnam from 1969 to 1971, in contrast to the 41,057 in 1968 and the 21,496 in 1972 (Wayne Thompson, To Hanoi and Back: The U.S. Air Force and North Vietnam, 1966–1973 [Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2000], 304). He also claims that “most modern armies in a time of war” are not “built on the draft” (p. 7), a surprising assertion, given the reliance of armies on conscription during both world wars.

Aside from its contribution to our understanding of an understudied aspect of the war, ARVN is especially relevant to the US military’s current effort to upgrade its understanding of non-Western culture and language. Americans equate combat skill solely with functions they can engineer, such as training in weapons and tactics, and materiel support, like equipment and firepower. ARVN reveals the existence of a straight line from cultural underpinnings to a unit’s combat effectiveness. Brigham provides an example of the consequences of ignoring familial values, priorities, concepts of honor and responsibility, family obligations, and political training for an armed force expanding during wartime. I recommend ARVN: Life and Death in the South Vietnamese Army to scholar and policy maker alike.

New Heavens: My Life as a Fighter Pilot and a Founder of the Israel Air Force by Boris Senior. Potomac Books (http://www.potomacbooksinc.com), 22841 Quicksilver Drive, Dulles, Virginia 20166, 288 pages, $20.76 (hardcover), $13.56 (softcover).

Boris Senior grew up as the son of a prosperous farmer and businessman who immigrated to South Africa to escape Russia’s oppression of Jews. As a young man, he had only a casual knowledge of his religious heritage and very little appreciation of the worldwide oppression exacted upon Jews. When World War II erupted, Senior’s older brother joined the South African Air Force as a fighter pilot. He soon followed in his brother’s footsteps.

As a fighter pilot flying for the Royal Air Force, Senior attacked targets throughout Italy. On one mission, he was shot down over the Adriatic, but a US Army PBY (patrol bomber) plucked him out of the freezing water in a daring rescue. The war enlightened Senior to the plight of his fellow Jews and stirred his sense of Zionist nationalism. Afterward he surreptitiously joined forces with the Irgun and later the Haganah to set the stage for establishment of the Jewish state of Israel.

After the United Nations mandate of 1948, which created an independent Israel, he became one of the founding members of the new air force, serving as an Israeli pilot and eventually retiring with the rank of colonel. New Heavens is Senior’s memoir of experiences throughout these turbulent times. One would expect that such a book would be a must-read for anyone interested in the infancy of what has become one of the most respected air forces in the world. Unfortunately, the book fails to live up to expectations.

As a memoir, New Heavens is adequate. As history it is seriously lacking in substance. It reads like a travel book—interesting and entertaining but hardly enlightening. Senior, who passed away shortly after he finished the book, wrote in a very engaging, personal style. His anecdotes, such as the detailed account of his rescue at sea, are thrilling. But that is as far as it goes. After reading the book, one will know no more about the political or military strategy or tactics of the Israeli Air Force than before. The stories herein are those of a participant and sometimes an observer of events, but they reveal nothing regarding the shaping or leadership of these events. The author’s lifetime of service is certainly worthy of respect, but it makes one wonder if he was truly a “founder” of the Israeli Air Force. A deeper discussion of the historical events would have erased all doubt in this regard.

Additionally, considering the times in which we live, Senior’s breezy description of his terrorist activities in Europe and South Africa made this reviewer a little squeamish. His easy transition from Allied fighter pilot to terrorist operating in England draws an uncomfortable parallel to the very real possibility of terrorist cells operating in our own nation today. Neither my support of Israel nor the fact that Senior proved inept as a terrorist failed to mitigate a growing nausea in the pit of my stomach as I read these passages. History should not be denied, but the author’s free and unapologetic admissions may make the reader uncomfortable. All in all, New Heavens is an easily forgettable book that, unfortunately, fails to live up to its potential.

Go for Launch! An Illustrated History of Cape Canaveral by Joel W. Powell with Art LeBrun. Apogee Books/Collectors Guide Publishing (http://www.apogeebooks.com), 1440 Graham’s Lane, Unit no. 2, Burlington, Ontario L7S 1W3, Canada, 2006, 320 pages, $29.95 (softcover).

The history of space activities at Cape Canaveral, Florida, America’s spaceport, is as interesting as it is varied. Go for Launch! seeks to tell this story—already available in both scholarly and popular as well as illustrated and textual forms—with an emphasis on illustrations. At a fundamental level, the “Cape,” as it is universally known by those in the space community, may be as much a state of mind as it is a physical place. With high-technology enterprises resting side by side with a wetlands refuge, it is an eerie location—what Anne Morrow Lindbergh ironically referred to as the abode of both the “heron and the astronaut.”

Go for Launch! attempts to capture the 50-year history of this place as the central space-launch site in the United States. There are three central components to the Cape’s space-access efforts. The one best known is the Kennedy Space Center, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration installation that serves as the site for the preparation and launch of the nation’s human-spaceflight effort. The Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and space shuttle launches have all taken place there. The military also has a huge presence at the Cape, with Air Force and Navy facilities engaging in all manner of test and evaluation at the Eastern Test Range, extending into the Atlantic Ocean. Finally, recent years have seen a major effort to establish commercial space operations in the area, and a growing number of nongovernmental launches have flown from the Cape. The first rocket took off with the launch of Bumper 8 on 24 July 1950, establishing a precedent that has endured more than 50 years.

Divided into three major parts, Go for Launch! devotes the first part, nearly half of the book, to the period from 1950 through the Sputnik crisis of 1957. It relates in words and photographs the history of the military’s effort to establish a launch capability at the Cape and to undertake research and development on a range of missiles and research rockets. These included ballistic missiles so well known in history—the Atlas, Titan, Minuteman, Polaris, Trident, and Poseidon—as well as cruise missiles such as the Matador, Snark, Bomarc, and Navaho. This part also covers scientific rocket launches and the construction and operation of facilities that supported them. The authors have done a good job of locating and printing unique and interesting photos of these activities, many of them not familiar to the public. Indeed, a number of pages are essentially photographs with captions.

The second section relates the story of the orbital space-launch era from the flight of the first orbital spacecraft, Explorer 1, launched from the Cape atop a Juno rocket on 31 January 1958, through the loss of the space shuttle Challenger on 28 January 1986, 73 seconds into its flight. Again, the authors found interesting imagery to illustrate the work. Dealing with the more recent era, the third section focuses on the return to flight after the Challenger accident and the development and flight of various types of expendable vehicles launched from the Cape.

The imagery is quite adequate overall, but the reader should be aware that the vast majority of it is in black and white with only a small color section added to the book. Accordingly, readers seeking the splashy design of a coffee-table book will assuredly be disappointed. A better work of that type is David West Reynolds’s Kennedy Space Center: Gateway to Space (Firefly Books, 2006), even though it does not treat in any detail the military aspects of the story and has several glaring errors of fact. What Go for Launch! does is collect in one place a large number of interesting and helpful photographs of more interest to the specialist, perhaps, than the casual reader. Additionally, if one seeks a complex historical analysis of the history of space-launch facilities at the Cape, this is not the best book. Instead, one may find a superb analysis in A History of the Kennedy Space Center by Kenneth Lipartito and Orville R. Butler (University Press of Florida, 2007). Go for Launch! fills a key niche in the effort to understand the history of the Cape but does not stand alone as the only work on the subject that interested readers will want to consult.

Enduring the Freedom: A Rogue Historian in Afghanistan by Sean M. Maloney. Potomac Books (http://www.potomacbooksinc.com), 22841 Quick­silver Drive, Dulles, Virginia 20166, 2006, 320 pages, $22.00 (hardcover), $15.16 (softcover).

A military historian with a degree from Temple University, Dr. Sean M. Maloney, who served as a Canadian army officer, currently teaches in the War Studies Program of Canada’s Royal Military College. In the spring of 2003, he traveled to Afghanistan to study operations of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). In Enduring the Freedom: A Rogue Historian in Afghanistan, he documents his time with the ISAF in Kabul and with US forces in Bagram and Kandahar.

For the most part, Enduring the Freedom is a well-written, enjoyable account that provides the reader with a great deal of insight into the largely unreported story of US and allied operations in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban. By far the best part deals with the author’s time in Afghanistan with various national forces. A good storyteller, Maloney uses his eye for detail to vividly describe the Afghan countryside and his ear for dialogue to recount conversations with soldiers, bureaucrats, and others in a way that rings true. The stories about his time on patrol give the reader a real appreciation for and insight into the mission in Afghanistan. For example, Maloney recounts going on patrol with a squad from a German battalion of Gebirgsjaegers (mountain hunters). As they drive through Kabul, an Afghan taxi strikes one of their vehicles. Although the taxi receives only a tiny scratch, the driver immediately draws a crowd by loudly demanding compensation from the Germans and pushing at members of the patrol. The German leader, a junior noncommissioned officer (NCO), quickly takes charge and tells the driver that he must accompany the patrol to the local police station to discuss compensation. Upon arrival, the taxi driver is taken to a back room and soon returns to apologize to the Germans. The German NCO declines to accept the apology because of the driver’s insincerity. After another trip to the back room, the Afghan offers a more acceptable apology, and both he and the German patrol return to work. This episode illustrates the difficulty of the mission in Afghanistan, which requires junior officers and NCOs who can think quickly, understand political implications, and realize cultural differences, all the while keeping themselves as safe as possible. Enduring the Freedom makes this very clear. Dr. Maloney also has few qualms about indulging in a little gossip, recounting a couple of meetings in the Afghan countryside with intrepid war correspondent Geraldo Rivera as well as encounters with a famous, though unidentified, European reporter.

The book is not without its weak points though. A section that offers historical background to the conflict in an attempt to explain how Afghanistan became the primary target after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 simply tries to do too much in too little space. In only 21 pages, Dr. Maloney covers the relationship between Afghanistan and Pakistan, the development of radical Islam, the Afghan-Soviet war, Western support for the mujahideen, the rise of the Taliban, the effect of the collapse of the Soviet Union on Central Asia, and the rise of al-Qaeda and its operations against the West, culminating in the 9/11 attacks. I was almost out of breath at the end. In addition, the author’s personal biases become evident throughout the book. He has nothing complimentary to say about the Canadian government, academicians, or the media, and his affection for the soldiers with whom he patrols is obvious—they seem to have his unqualified support. But these biases are a double-edged sword, enhancing the quality of the memoir because they reveal his true feelings but raising the reader’s suspicion that he may have omitted some unflattering stories about these patrols in order to protect the soldiers.

Nevertheless, I strongly recommend Enduring the Freedom if for no other reason that there simply isn’t much written about the day-to-day operational environment in Afghanistan. Dr. Maloney tells his story well, drawing readers into the action and, as clichéd as it sounds, making them feel as if they are there with him. In many ways, this book reminds me of some of the better Vietnam memoirs. The activities described may comprise only a small part of the overall operation, but at the end of the story, we have a better understanding of the whole and a greater appreciation for the young men and women who serve there.

Lt Col James J. McNally, USAF, Retired
Tampa, Florida

LeMay, Great Generals Series, by Barrett Tillman. Palgrave Macmillan (http://www.palgrave-usa.com), 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010, 2007, 224 pages, $21.95 (hardcover).

Curtis Emerson LeMay was a straightforward, combat-proven aviator and one of the most controversial officers ever to serve in the US Air Force. Both revered and reviled, he is one of our most misunderstood military leaders, often depicted as an uncaring, driven individual who wanted to bomb enemies “back to the Stone Age.”

Barrett Tillman’s excellent, albeit concise, biography LeMay paints a much different picture of this aviation legend, one that dispels many of the myths about him. A great deal shorter than Thomas Coffey’s Iron Eagle: The Turbulent Life of General Curtis LeMay (1986), Tillman’s text covers the essential periods of LeMay’s life, from seeing his first airplane in flight (at age eight), through his retirement in 1965, to his death in 1990.

The author illustrates how LeMay’s formative years laid the foundation for greatness. The oldest of six children, LeMay was a hard-working young man, an avid hunter, and a mechanically inclined individual who built his own radios. After leaving the ROTC program at Ohio State University for financial reasons, he entered the National Guard, eventually moving on to flight training and receiving his commission as a fighter pilot in October 1929. Assigned to the 27th Pursuit Squadron, he immediately sought opportunities to refine his aviation skills, mastering celestial navigation as well as instrument flying and becoming an instructor. All of the skills honed his airmanship, preparing him for the maelstrom of the Second World War.

Tillman effectively explores the highlights of LeMay’s wartime exploits, including his rise as one of the most innovative leaders in the European theater of operations, his transfer to China, and his performance in the Mariana Islands, which helped bring Japan to its knees. The author also documents LeMay’s work at the start of the Cold War—as commander of US Air Forces in Europe—including his efforts to sustain an entire city by air during the Berlin airlift. Chapters about his leadership of Strategic Air Command illustrate the general’s well-known attributes, such as his insistence on relentless training, excruciatingly high standards, grueling inspections, and rewards for combat readiness (e.g., the “spot promotion”).

However, Tillman exposes a bit more of LeMay in subsequent chapters, using refreshing prose that illuminates a different aspect of the man. Indeed, the author highlights his subject’s determination to obtain better living facilities, additional recreational activities, and better pay for his Airmen. Granted, LeMay had an intense capacity for focusing on the mission, but these more human aspects show his dedication to the people who served under his command. In his later years, the general and his wife, Helen, founded the Curtis E. LeMay Foundation, which, to this day, provides financial aid to spouses of Air Force retirees—a tribute to the compassion this leader felt for the men and women of our service.

Tillman does not shy away from the controversial elements of LeMay’s life, discussing the implications of the firebombing of Japan as well as the decision to drop the atomic bomb. Furthermore, he explores the antagonistic relations between LeMay and Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara over weapon-system development (including the TFX and XB-70 Valkyrie aircraft) and the war in Vietnam. Additionally, he discusses the alienation that LeMay felt in the “Camelot” of the Kennedy administration, which prized politics and posturing over combat ability and sound military advice.

The author also touches upon LeMay’s strange bid for the office of vice president in 1968, running on the same ticket with segregationist governor George Wallace of Alabama. Although the general maintained that he simply wished to keep Hubert Humphrey from winning the election, this ill-fated attempt at politics further degraded his reputation. Tillman also reveals that LeMay never refuted the “bomb them [the North Vietnamese] back to the Stone Age” quotation attributed to him. Although no evidence exists that he ever uttered those words, he remains linked with them nonetheless.

In the book’s last chapter, Tillman reflects on his subject’s accomplishments as well as his mistakes, highlighting not only LeMay’s enduring legacy but also—and more importantly—the traits that make him a leader worth emulating, especially his drive to become the best aviator possible and to know all aspects of his craft. How may senior leaders today take on the “tough missions”? By demanding accountability, cultivating subordinates, and emphasizing teamwork. LeMay exhibited such traits by word and deed.

In the final chapter, Tillman’s analysis addresses all aspects of his subject—the good and bad qualities of the driven, demanding commander who seeks the best for all of his subordinates, down to the newest and lowest-ranking Airman. In the final pages, the author asks the reader to think about what makes a good soldier and apply those criteria to Curtis LeMay. LeMay does indeed answer that question, bringing to light unknown facets of this illustrious yet often misconstrued warrior.

Lt Col Rick Hughes, USAF
Robins AFB, Georgia

Rattler One-Seven: A Vietnam Helicopter Pilot’s War Story by Chuck Gross. University of North Texas Press (http://www.unt.edu/untpress), P.O. Box 311336, Denton, Texas 76203-1336, 2004, 248 pages, $27.95 (hardcover), $14.95 (softcover).

Time tends to smooth memory’s rough edges, and the value of Gross’s account is greatly enhanced by frequent reference to his letters home—letters that preserve an emotional intensity and authenticity of language that otherwise would have been lost. The book is well illustrated with photographs taken by the author and his fellow aviators (the incredible youth of the warrant-officer pilots and their crews is striking), and these surely enhance the intensity and authenticity as well. Gross also makes good use of the testimonies of comrades who served with him. His style is spare and straightforward, and his account modest and direct, unsparing in his assessments of himself and others. His observations on leadership, good and bad alike, are compelling. After returning from Vietnam, the author embarked on a career in aviation—at the time he wrote this book, he worked as a captain for American Airlines, flying Boeing 757s and 767s. He knows his flying, and it shows. In the reviewer’s perhaps biased opinion (I flew Air Force HH-3E and HH-53C “Jolly Green” rescue helicopters in Southeast Asia in 1965–66 and 1975), Rattler One-Seven is one of the most authentic pilot’s memoirs to come out of Vietnam—and surely the best by a helicopter pilot.

Gross takes the reader with him from his decision to join the Army, through his experiences with helicopter training, to the long flight from McChord AFB, Washington, to Vietnam. Arriving as a “newby,” he undergoes the trials and tribulations of learning the operational environment and aircraft while gaining acceptance from his unit’s experienced pilots. Gross preferred to fly “Slicks”—UH-1 D and H troop transports—as opposed to UH-1G Cobra gunships, though he had friends in his brigade’s attack-helicopter company and draws extensively on their experiences in his narrative. We follow along as he grows in skill and experience, finally earning election (yes, election—very different from Air Force procedures!) as senior aircraft commander at the tender age of 20. Gross flew a variety of missions, ranging from being on night flare-ship alert, standing by to help beleaguered outposts; hauling ground commanders and their staffs; spraying Agent Orange; and inserting special operations groups into Laos as well as extracting them. His account of a night extraction of a compromised patrol from a minuscule landing zone (LZ) in south Laos had the hair standing up on the back of my neck!

The author logged the bulk of his missions in the assault role, hauling mostly troopers from the Army of the Republic of [South] Vietnam (ARVN) into combat (US line infantry was being withdrawn when he arrived in-theater). This was mostly routine—but not entirely. The climax of the book comes with the participation of Gross’s unit in Operation Lam Son 719, the ARVN’s drive west from Khe Sanh to cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail by land in February–April 1971. One of the most ill-conceived operations of the war, Lam Son 719 was hamstrung by a congressional edict prohibiting the use of US ground forces in Laos. Consequently, the ARVN battalions went in without their American advisers and, lacking English-speaking forward air controllers, had no access to close air support. That became a matter of life and death—mostly the latter—when they found themselves heavily outnumbered by North Vietnamese regulars backed by tanks and anti­aircraft artillery.

The congressional ban did not apply to US aviators, and the results were not pretty. The beleaguered ARVN infantry depended totally on US Army helicopters for insertion and extraction, and the assault-helicopter companies depended on Huey gunships for fire support, affording what protection they could against North Vietnamese .51-caliber heavy machine guns and, on occasion, 23 mm and 37 mm antiaircraft artillery and tanks. Gross’s gripping account of the LZ Lolo fiasco of 3 March (because the author did not fly that day, he depends on his friends’ eyewitness accounts) alone is worth the price of the book. The vision of over 100 Hueys going into a single-ship LZ in trail formation under constant fire, uncertain as to just who controlled the LZ, made my blood run cold. In the end, the courage, skill, and determination of the Army aviators salvaged something from defeat, but at a heavy price: 107 helicopters destroyed and battle damage to an additional 618 (pp. 179–80). The devil, of course, is in the details, and Gross handles them well. The Army helicopter side of the Vietnam War has been poorly served in the literature, but this fine account goes far in making good the deficiency.

Lt Col John F. Guilmartin Jr., USAF, Retired
Columbus, Ohio

Globemaster III: Acquiring the C-17 by Betty R. Kennedy. Office of History, Air Mobility Command, Scott AFB, Illinois, 2004, 298 pages (softcover).

Needless to say, such an ideal airlifter is a physical impossibility; like all weapon systems, the C-17A Globemaster III represents a compromise based on trade-offs. In Globemaster III: Acquiring the C-17, Betty R. Kennedy, former Air Mobility Command historian, traces the C-17 program from its origin to its important role in the global war on terror. The program had its roots in the desire of Tactical Air Command to replace the C-7 Caribou and C-123 Provider intratheater transports that had seen use in Vietnam. By the mid-1970s, this desire had morphed into the Advanced Manned STOL [short takeoff and landing] Transport program, which produced two technology-demonstrator aircraft (the Boeing YC-14 and McDonnell Douglas YC-15), more oriented toward replacing the C-130 Hercules. By the late 1970s, airlift requirements had shifted to a need for more intertheater airlift, so the Air Force initiated the C-X program. McDonnell Douglas won the competition with a design that essentially called for a larger and longer-ranged YC-15; this aircraft became the C-17. But the C-17 program still had to face many obstacles, including advocates of such alternatives as acquiring additional C-5 Galaxies (which did occur [the C-5B]) and Boeing 747 freighters (which did not occur).

Clearly the author sifted through an enormous number of documents and conducted many interviews in this well-researched history, as reflected in the voluminous and thorough endnotes. However, she does not appear to have consulted the detailed technical reports produced by the Air Force Flight Test Center; doing so would have provided additional, valuable insight into the many technical challenges that the program encountered. Kennedy explains the many twists and turns of the program—from the initial statement through operational service—as it was buffeted by changing threats and national strategies, congressional direction, debates over interservice roles and missions, multiple layers of the Air Force organization, competing business interests, and technical challenges. One is left impressed by the enormous complexity of conceiving, planning, and executing the acquisition of a major weapon system. This well-written book reveals the many problems experienced during the program. Although painful and protracted, it did eventually produce an excellent aircraft. The detailed appendices and color photographs add much to the book’s usefulness.

The reader will encounter several small but annoying errors. For example, the last name of Senator Nancy Kassebaum (R-Kans.) is misspelled, and designations of US Army vehicles are frequently incorrect. Also, the author erroneously states that the C-135 is the military designation for the Boeing 707 airliner. In fairness, these minor points do not detract from the value of the book.

One should also note that Kennedy deals with the C-17 program, not the airplane itself. Readers who want a thorough and well-illustrated description of the C-17 should consult Boeing C-17A Globemaster III (North Branch, MN: Specialty Press, 2001) by Maj Bill Norton, USAF, retired, who was a flight-test engineer in the program. His book effectively complements Kennedy’s.

Globemaster III offers an outstanding case study for anybody interested in America’s modern military-acquisition process. I also recommend it to people who operate, maintain, and support the C-17. They will benefit from an appreciation of the enormous effort it took to bring their weapon system into service.

Kenneth P. Katz
Longmeadow, Massachusetts

1776 by David McCullough. Simon and Schuster (http://www.simonsays.com), 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020, 2005, 400 pages, $32.00 (hardcover); 2006, 400 pages, $18.00 (trade paperback).

The book has a relatively simple premise. It begins with the debate in October 1775 in the British Parliament over the “desperate conspiracy” and “open revolt” taking place in America (p. 10). At the end of the debate, the House of Lords and House of Commons voted overwhelmingly to support King George III’s plan to deliver a decisive blow to the riotous rebels of America. Four months earlier on the other side of the Atlantic, the Continental Congress had unanimously appointed George Washington the new commander in chief of the army. John Adams, who had nominated Washington, remarked that the appointment “will have great effect in cementing and securing the union of these colonies” (p. 43). The remainder of the book describes the clashes between British forces and the Continental Army during 1776. These occurred in three different places: Boston, New York City, and New Jersey. McCullough describes the American successes in Boston that compelled the British forces to evacuate, the British successes in New York City that forced the American troops to evacuate, and the American triumph in New Jersey.

The strength of the book, however, does not lie in the historical description of these clashes although they are quite adequate, especially for nonhistorians. Rather, one finds the real strength—and most interesting part—of 1776 in the rich detail that McCullough provides about warfare and the people involved in it, including the effect of the weather, knowledge of terrain, morale, leadership, training, sickness, and chance. By utilizing multiple sources, especially diaries and personal letters, the author makes the stories come to life. As Thomas Paine wrote in The Crisis after the withdrawal from New York City, “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman” (http://www
.ushistory.org/Paine/crisis/singlehtml.htm).

McCullough’s 1776 shows the tenuousness of the situation in the first full year of the American Revolution. It also demonstrates how good fortune, providence, and the exceptional leadership of George Washington preserved the cause for freedom. This book is a must-read for military professionals.

Dr. Jack D. Kem, Colonel, USA, Retired
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas

Space as a Strategic Asset by Joan Johnson-Freese. Columbia University Press (http://www.columbia.edu/ cu/cup), 61 West 62nd Street, New York, New York 10023, 2007, 320 pages, $45.00 (hardcover).

The book has the right focus for discussing the political, commercial, and military interests of space as a region of national interest. Not filled with technical equations about raising a platform into low Earth orbit, it instead clearly explains why various countries desire to utilize such a platform. Moreover, the author points out the shortcomings of some American political operatives who fail to grasp the importance of space unless it involves an immediate and direct increase in jobs (read votes) for the constituents in their congressional districts.

Johnson-Freese explores the nuances of the inter­national space race, including several interesting discussions on issues underlying the military use of space, manned and unmanned space systems, and the complexities of dual-use technology. Written in a pithy manner, this study is chock full of information regarding commercial, political, and military space issues.

Space as a Strategic Asset will appeal not only to all serious students of political science, including officers attending the nation’s war colleges, but also to armchair tacticians who want to expand their under­standing of the political and military aspects of space rather than its technical aspects. I certainly recommend this well-written, well-organized, and informative book, which exposes the reader to salient issues related to space as a region of worldwide concern.

Col Joseph J. McCue, USAF, Retired
Springfield, Virginia

Frontline Pakistan: The Struggle with Militant Islam by Zahid Hussain. Columbia University Press (http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup), 61 West 62nd Street, New York, New York 10023, 2007, 256 pages, $24.95 (hardcover).

Zahid Hussain appears well qualified to attempt to give us a picture of the situation. A journalist providing materials to the Times of London, Newsweek,and the Wall Street Journal,he has a good writing style and is an expert on the region, having had access to some hard-to-get-at sources. He organizes his work in topical chapters and in a more-or-less chronological order. The political landscape is cluttered with military, religious, power-seeking, nuclear-smuggling, and drug interests that yielded an almost impossible problem for former president Pervez Musharraf, who tried to survive in the midst of a number of mutually hostile domestic groups and the pressures of international politics.

I fear that the reader seeking a coherent picture of Pakistan and Afghanistan is doomed to frustration. Both countries have long seemed ungovernable, partly because the central governments have had very limited powers over regional and local interests. I suppose that the main idea of the book is that trouble probably looms ahead for the United States because of Pakistan’s status as a principal ally during the global war on terror—largely because President Musharraf sided with America, a position that goes very much against the tide in his own homeland. That cannot continue forever, according to Hussain, and I suppose that he thinks the only possible solution lies in allowing real democracy in Pakistan. However, given the strength of the local warlords and the growing power of radical Islam, that would be a miracle. Atop that, Musharraf faced a tough problem of nuclear proliferation. Pakistan followed India into the elite group of nuclear states, but its control of nuclear secrets has proved defective, and its people have been involved in serious underground nuclear proliferation. If that were not enough, he also was utterly dependent upon the loyalty of his military—a little shaky because the latter has an affinity for some of the radical Islamic groups, and they oppose secular government. Hussain does not address the character of the “liberal” Pakistani groups who advocate secular rule, but it appears that radical Islam and military rule are completely antithetical to them. Moreover, Musharraf faced the perennial issue of the dispute with India over Kashmir. Although he managed to contain that to a certain degree, it remained fully capable of boiling over into a disaster for him—and for the United States. Because our campaign in Afghanistan against the remnants of the Taliban and al-Qaeda greatly depends upon our relationship with the Pakistani government, that means trouble.

Few Americans know much about Pakistan and its surrounding region, and Frontline Pakistan will certainly not make one an instant expert on the subject. However, it is readable and will serve as a useful introduction to the problems of the area. I therefore recommend that it occupy a moderately high place on your reading list.

Dr. David R. Mets
Maxwell AFB, Alabama

War Bird Ace: The Great War Exploits of Capt. Field E. Kindley by Jack Stokes Ballard. Texas A&M University Press Consortium (http://www.tamu.edu/upress), John H. Lindsey Building, Lewis Street, 4354 TAMU, College Station, Texas 77843-4354, 2007, 224 pages, $29.95 (hardcover).

During his time as a flight commander, Captain Kindley worked out his priorities, implementing practices to bring the pilots in his flight home after the war. He remained in Europe as part of the occupation forces, tasked to contribute to the compilation of lessons learned, particularly those concerning the deployment and operation of air units. Kindley’s fame became such that he testified before Congress regarding the needs of the Army’s aviation branch in both training and equipment.

He continued his Army career following the war, entering a number of races to show off the art of aviation. Although he didn’t win any of them, his efforts proved instrumental in the life of Army aviation, keeping it in the limelight and thus alive. Unfortunately, Captain Kindley perished in an accident while practicing for a live-firepower demonstration. Noticing that several people had entered the target area, he buzzed the location in an effort to get them to leave, but as Kindley returned to his flight, he apparently turned too sharply. The accident board concluded that he had either unintentionally stalled the airplane or that the aircraft’s aileron control had failed. The attempt to clear the target area reflected his consideration for others.

Although the writing can become somewhat tiresome in places, the book is an easy read, well documented with both footnotes and a bibliography. The final chapter provides a good summary. Who was Capt Field Kindley? What made him the person he was and the aerial leader he turned out to be? By reading War Bird Ace, we discover the personal characteristics that served one man well in becoming a leader as well as a commander in any military organization. We would do well to emulate them.

Lt Col Raymond F. Hain III, USAFR, Retired
Wilmington, Delaware

American Generalship: Character Is Everything: The Art of Command by Edgar F. Puryear Jr. Presidio Press (http://www.randomhouse.com/rhpg/category/military), Random House Publishing Group, 1745 Broadway, New York, New York 10019, 2001, 400 pages, $17.95 (trade paperback).

Puryear’s premise is that military members can learn effective leadership skills and techniques from studying what has made great generals successful and what has characterized their styles and philosophies. Military-management studies frequently compare business practices to military ones and try to distill applicable lessons. Uniquely, this book provides hundreds of concrete examples of military officers exercising leadership in situations with which every officer and noncommissioned officer will identify. The author proudly mentions that he has gathered over 10,000 pieces of correspondence and interviews with more than 1,000 general and flag officers, including 100 four-stars. Among those he has interviewed are legends such as Dwight Eisenhower, Omar Bradley, Matthew Ridgway, Carl Spaatz, Jimmy Doolittle, and Curtis LeMay, granting rare insight into their decision making—not only on major issues of war and peace but also on matters they faced as junior and field-grade officers. Puryear’s ability to weave highlights from these discussions into his narrative is compelling, and he relates them in an engaging manner. In addition, he cites examples from Civil War memoirs and great American soldiers who lived before he began his study. He does not deal in esoteric management theories but repeatedly strikes his target with practical examples of military officers confronted with the real challenges of leadership. Most of what his subjects cite is neither battlefield bravado nor the genius many of them displayed as combat leaders, but the hard decisions made by commanders at every level and by program directors as well as section chiefs, doing the everyday work of the military.

As his subtitle indicates, “Character Is Everything,” and in these pages the reader finds officers making the “right” choices. Puryear points out that great leaders gain authority from their “strength of character” because “there is absolutely nothing as important in successful leadership as character” (p. 1). He states that several principles are common among great leaders. These include selflessness, decisiveness, willingness to hear opposing views, study of one’s profession (and related issues), mentoring, and having sufficient trust in subordinates to delegate authority. All of these are essential to success and growth within the military profession and are real expressions of the Air Force’s core values. None are always easy, yet all are crucial to success in command or in any leadership role. One unique aspect of this book is its touch on intangibles, such as a sixth sense in decision making (a feel for morale, conditions, and situations) and consideration for others. Although both are essential to any leader, neither is easily defined. In describing them, Puryear provides a reminder that much of what we do as leaders is undefined but indispensable. A leader who is trusted will be able to use these indescribable qualities more freely than one who is not.

The interviewees’ frequent references to their own mistakes is a valuable feature of the book. Many authors show us success and say “do this.” The candor shown by Puryear’s subjects humanizes them and makes this study more interesting. He relates a story from Maj Gen Lunsford E. Oliver, a commander under Patton. As Oliver’s division became increasingly ensnarled with other units on French roads, he was summoned to headquarters. General Patton opened the meeting with the statement “We are in a hell of a mess and it is my fault” (p. 289). These words eased a conscientious subordinate’s mind, and he was able to continue with his duties, knowing that he still had his commander’s support and that blame would not be pushed down the chain. A story told by Air Force general T. R. Milton presents the view from the perspective of “I personally made a mistake.” He recounts an ineffective bombing mission over Germany and how Gen Curtis LeMay had the discernment to see that the mistake was an honest one (p. 290). We should heed the epigraph quoting Gen George Marshall at the beginning of this chapter: “Fix the problem, not the blame” (p. 285). A leader has the vital task of judging when people have made that honest mistake and when they have violated trust or procedure. One is a failure of training or learning; the other is willful or critical. One requires understanding; the other discipline. We can learn as much from failure as from success. It is imperative that leaders exercise this level of sensitivity and judgment.

Furthermore, the personal recollections of World War II leaders prove fascinating. We sometimes forget that officers in that great conflict faced limited resources, operational demands, and the typical pressures we confront daily in the military profession. Too often we place these legends in a pantheon, as if they were destined for greatness, forgetting that they were officers trying to do a job while coping with insufficient data, competing requirements, and incredibly difficult taskings, not to mention career issues such as assignments, training, promotion, family needs, and the uncertainties of life. Yet, in tying the experiences of these renowned generals to men such as Ulysses S. Grant, William T. Sherman, and John J. Pershing, as well as leaders of our own time—H. Norman Schwarzkopf, Colin Powell, and Charles Horner—Puryear builds historical unity in these principles, validating their timeless nature and memorably reinforcing them by scaling these heroes in human proportions.

American Generalship gives us an opportunity to learn from leaders worthy of emulation and to ponder the way they coped with situations not too different from those with which we deal every day. Many authors give us bits that we can put in our leadership toolbox, but Puryear provides a rich resource for all military professionals who expect to face the challenges of leadership.

Col James M. Pfaff, Ohio ANG
Columbus, Ohio