Jeffrey S. Perry |
Review of Chuck Larson, Heroes Among Us: Firsthand Accounts
of Combat from America's Most Decorated Warriors in Iraq and
Afghanistan. New York: NAL Caliber, 2008. Pp. xvi, 334. ISBN
978-0-451-22334-0. |
Jeffrey Perry served five years as a Sergeant in the Marine
Corps, including a deployment to Iraq with MP Company, HQ Battalion,
4th Marine Division from September 2005 to April 2006. -- Ed.
This book collects twenty-nine accounts from
decorated veterans of the wars Iraq and Afghanistan.[1]
All but two are first-hand, taken from interviews conducted by
another decorated veteran, Major Chuck Larson. He has edited the
accounts to make them clear to a wide audience. The book is also
equipped with an introduction by Gen. Tommy Franks and an afterword
by Sen. John McCain.
All of the veterans Larson has selected have been
awarded one of the highest military medals--the Medal of Honor, the
Silver Star, the Distinguished Service Cross, the Navy Cross, or the
Air Force Cross. His professed goal in creating this book is to give
a better understanding of the veterans' experiences and their
extraordinary acts of bravery, without attempting to sway the reader
toward or against either war.
Larson himself served as a Major in the U.S. Army
and was the Command Judge Advocate for the 372nd Engineer Group and
Task Force 185th Aviation Group during a year-long deployment to
Iraq in 2004 (6). As a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and a
recipient of the Bronze Star himself, he has all the qualifications
to write such a book like Heroes Among Us. His military
experience has enabled him to interview veterans and convey their
narratives without losing or distorting information through the
complexities of military customs and terminology. He retains all the
essential components of the veterans' stories while avoiding
excessive military lingo.
The resulting book is accessible to a broad range
of readers. Everyone from those with no knowledge of the military,
to the most seasoned veterans will be able to peruse the book
without continually consulting a Jane's for clarifications.
Even veterans of the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan
will learn about acts of bravery few have had a chance to witness,
but those without personal experience in either war will learn the
most.[2] It
can be difficult to determine the veracity of second-hand
information at a time when attitudes concerning both wars are
polarized and often saturated with political bias. These
twenty-seven eyewitness accounts, by those most acquainted with the
subject, give readers unadulterated and diverse information about
both wars.
In his introduction, however, Larson falters in
his attempt to avoid bias. He begins admirably by focusing on the
veterans and the significance of the medals they have earned, but
then begins to digress, relating his own positive interactions with
Iraqi civilians and noting how he feels conditions for Iraqis have
improved since the invasion of Iraq and the ousting of Saddam
Hussein. He then launches into a discourse about freedom and
democracy:
From the day of this nation's birth, we've been the freest nation on
the face of the earth. The moment we accepted this gift from God, we
gave ourselves the mission of spreading liberty to the four corners
of the earth and to the seven seas. Freedom is our number-one
export....[3]
Democracies don't wage war against one another. If you want to be
inspired, watch what people do with their newfound freedom. It's the
power of an unchained human spirit and it's a sight to behold. Since
time immemorial, the forces of good and evil have waged war against
one another (6, 9).[4]
His digression, an explicit attempt to justify
the wars, is irrelevant to his professed goal and leaves a bad taste
in the reader's mouth just as he proceeds into the narratives. If Larson truly
wanted to present the experiences of veterans and their heroism in
an unbiased manner, he should have omitted this segment.
Only two of the narratives in the book are not
first-hand: the accounts of Army Sergeant First Class Paul Smith and
Marine Corporal Jason Dunham. Both died from wounds sustained in
combat and were posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. In these
two cases, Larson has supplemented a brief description of their
actions with a eulogy from one of their family members.
One helpful feature of this book is that several
of the accounts involve the same engagement; this facilitates
synoptic views of those particular battles. The best example
involves a battle in Afghanistan during Operation Anaconda in March
of 2002 (65). A U.S. Special Forces team attempted to secure a
mountain called Takur Ghar by landing on its summit from their
helicopter. Members of al-Qaeda were already entrenched on the
mountain and fired on the helicopter as it approached. One member of
the Special Forces team fell from the helicopter. In attempting to
rescue him, his fellow team members landed on the mountain and a
battle with al-Qaeda forces ensued (69).
The narratives of this battle are by three
servicemen sent to aid the besieged Special Forces team. All of were
awarded the Silver Star each provides a unique viewpoint, which
taken together give a very complete presentation of the battle.
The interrelated accounts begin with Army
Sergeant Eric Stebner, a member of a Quick Reaction Force sent to
provide assistance on the ground. Stebner and the other soldiers
were supposed to have been transported by helicopter to the
mountaintop and deployed close to the battle. Instead, their
helicopter released them several thousand feet below where they
should have been. Realizing the error, Sgt Stebner led the soldiers
of the Quick Reaction Force in a hurried ascent up the mountain.
Racing to assist the besieged Special Forces team, they climbed
through rough terrain and frigid weather, while taking fire from
al-Qaeda forces above them. After climbing for several hours in
these conditions, they reached the battle and, despite their
fatigue, linked up with the other U.S. forces and immediately closed
with the enemy (61-3).
Next, Captain Nathan Self gives his description
of the same battle from a different angle on the battlefield. Self
belonged to a different Quick Reaction Force also sent by helicopter
to aid the Special Forces team on the mountain. Their helicopter
made it to the correct landing site, but before the men could safely
deploy, the al-Qaeda forces attacked with small arms fire. Some
members of the Quick Reaction Force were wounded and the helicopter
made a crash landing. Captain Self and the remaining soldiers kept
the al-Qaeda forces at bay and called in close air support. When Sgt
Stebner and his soldiers arrived, they joined in the assault on the
al-Qaeda forces (70-3).
Finally, the account of Captain Christopher
Russell provides a viewpoint from the air. Russell was a Weapons
System Operator on one of the F-15s providing close air support for
Captain Self and the other soldiers. Since U.S. and al-Qaeda forces
were in such close proximity, he could not safely employ his bombs
without risk of friendly fire casualties. The F-15 pilots' only
other option was to fly close to the mountain and use the guns
mounted on their aircraft to engage the enemy. This was a difficult,
because the gun was designed for air-to-air combat and not for
attacking ground targets. Even though flying so close to the
mountain made the planes vulnerable to enemy small arms fire, the
pilots chose to employ their guns (81-3). As Russell puts it:
Wow, pure adrenaline. My pilot and I had never deployed the
air-to-ground gun before in combat or even in a live fire exercise.
But we were prepared to do it. The way we set it up, one aircraft
was going to be cleared to employ the gun and the other aircraft was
going to remain high; we call it high-and-dry, looking for any
surface-to-air threats being shot at the guy that's rolling in.
Twister 5-1 was cleared to strike. He rolled in and was going down
to shoot. The enemies and the friendlies were so close to each other
that SLICK 0-1 couldn't tell if the F-15 guns were pointing at him
or the enemy in the trees. That's how close it was. That attack axis
wasn't going to work. The guys on the ground called out, "Abort,
abort," just as they were rolling down. They came off dry and they
did another circling pass. On the second one, they were cleared hot
and they strafed the trees, they nailed the trees, and after Twister
5-1 made a safe escape, the call came in: "Good guns, I can smell
the pine tree!" (82)
Six other accounts (by two brothers Captain
Daniel Hibner and Captain David Hibner, Gunnery Sergeant Justin
Lehew, Hospitalman Third Class Luis Fonseca Jr., Lance Corporal
Timothy Tardif, and Lance Corporal Joseph Perez) give multiple
perspectives on three different engagements. The remaining twenty
narratives recount discrete engagements.
All the accounts are coherent and on only one
occasion is the reliability of Larson's editing questionable. At the
beginning of Lance Corporal Timothy Tardif's account, he details the
events of the battle where he earned the Silver Star. Tardif
stresses his positive interaction with Iraqis and makes remarks
about freedom suspiciously reminiscent of Larson's introduction:
We became really tight with the people there. They would invite us
over for dinner and tea. We treated their kids as if they were our
own. One of my buddies that I still e-mail is an Iraqi police
officer. We taught the police officers martial arts and other police
techniques, like how to restrain someone. We communicated through
interpreters. We'd help the Iraqis push their carts, bale hay,
whatever they needed. We tried to do whatever we could for them. If
we were on patrol and saw somebody who needed help, we just did it.
We gave them water and dug ditches for drainage. The Shiites were
very appreciative. They loved having their freedom...The insurgency
was easy to smoosh because the people there loved us. They would
come up to us and tell us where the weapons caches were (223-4).
There are several problems here. First, the
action for which Tardif earned the Silver Star took place on 12
April 2003, less than a month after the invasion of Iraq. Tardif is
describing an area just South of Baghdad so it is improbable that he
had been there for any length of time, but the description makes it
seem he had been there for a long period. Already, less than a month
into the invasion, Tardif and his unit were battling an established
insurgency.
Secondly, in the account of the same engagement,
Lance Corporal Joseph Perez describes the Iraqis before the battle
rather differently: "We saw Bedouin families who were scared,
throwing up their white flags as soon as they saw us. It wasn't
until we got to the middle of Iraq that we started to see more and
more people" (232). The book only indicates that Joseph Perez
belonged to the First Marine Division and it is unclear whether he
belonged to the same battalion or regiment as Tardif. However, both
were members of the infantry, embarked on amtracs with the First
Marine Division during the invasion of Iraq. It may, therefore, be
inferred that they would have had somewhat similar experiences
dealing with Iraqi civilians before the battle. Hence, one must
wonder whether Larson has accurately rendered Tardif's words or
taken an opportunity to further his own agenda.
While the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
continue to be controversial topics of oscillating prominence in the
media, the heroism of veterans is an aspect that transcends
political disputes. Quite apart from one's attitude toward the wars,
everyone can appreciate the bravery of the men and women who fight
regardless of their personal feelings and without the prior
consultation of policy makers.
Eastern Michigan University
jperry9@emich.edu
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