The Unforgiving Minute: A Soldier's Education |  | Author: Craig M. Mullaney
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
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Seller: cubusa_books
Rating:  160 reviews
Sales Rank: 3801
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st
Pages: 400
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.6 x 1.4
ISBN: 1594202028
Dewey Decimal Number: 355.0092
EAN: 9781594202025
ASIN: 1594202028
Publication Date: February 19, 2009
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Product Description
A West Point grad, Rhodes Scholar, and Army Ranger recounts his unique education and struggles with the hard lessons that only war can teach.
One haunting afternoon on Losano Ridge in Afghanistan, U.S. Army Captain Craig Mullaney and his infantry platoon were caught in a deadly firefight with Al Qaeda fighters, when a message came over the radio: one of his soldiers had been killed by the enemy.
Mullaneys education,the four years he spent at West Point, and the harrowing test of Ranger School, readied him for a career in the Army. His subsequent experience as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford couldnt have been further from the Army and his working-class roots, and yet the unorthodox education he received there would be surprisingly relevant as a combat leader.
But despite all his preparation, the hardest questions remained. When the call came to lead his platoon into battle and earn his soldiers salutes, would he be ready? Was his education sufficient for the unforgiving minutes hed face?
Years later, after that excruciating experience in Afghanistan, he would return to the United States to teach history to future Navy and Marine Corps officers at the Naval Academy. He had been in their position once, not long ago. How would he use his own life-changing experience to prepare them?
Written with unflinching honesty,The Unforgiving Minute is an unforgettable portrait of a young soldier grappling with the weight of his hard-earned knowledge, while at last coming to terms with what it really means to be a man.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 160
 Insightful and compelling November 17, 2009
Erin (Oakdale, Minnesota United States)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I found this memoir well-written, engaging, and honest. I felt like I came away with a glimpse of what our soldiers experience in their training, and in their deployments. I got a sense of the deep commitments they carry toward each other. He illustrated beautifully that physical and intellectual strength and ability need not be in competition with each other, and that both are needed in military leadership. Mullaney does not paint himself as a hero of any kind, and is just as honest about his own struggles and perceived failings as his great successes. I strongly recommend this book.
Articulate and Beautifully Written Memoir November 12, 2009
Michael Newman (Long Beach, CA USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The Unforgiving Minute is exactly what its subtitle says -- it is the memoir of a soldier's education -- from West Point, to Oxford, to the battle fields of Afghanistan. This particular soldier, Craig Mullaney, is an intelligent observer and articulate and eloquent writer, so he brings a perspective that is very fruitful for the reader. Particularly heartfelt is his description of a savage firefight in Afghanistan that led to the death of one of the soldiers under his command -- and the toll this death took on him emotionally. An excellent book.
Unforgiving Hormones October 19, 2009
Jesse RHINES
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Unforgiving Hormones
A minute can be a very long time and it must have been for PFC O'Neill as he lay dying in Afghanistan. Craig M. Mullaney's memoir, The Unforgiving Minute, shares the terrible price of leadership and service in an environment where questioning purpose is all but forbidden. But even then is it justified, that lack of questioning, that is?
I remember how we taunted soldiers returned from Viet Nam for just such a lack. Were we right? Were they? Perhaps those unquestioning moments are the more salient for they are the norm--an unquestioning minute is the hardest to forgive as each may lead to so many more unforgiving minutes.
But a 20-year-old soldier doesn't really know enough to question, even if given hours or days. He/she has hormones to worry about, those, not some, Commander-in-Chief are what's really guiding that young life. And hormones, as natural as they are, can be really unforgiving. They ignore global context even while their course may be guided by a hard lived family context. That's where the real fog of war reigns for a kid of 20.
So, when I sported the gift of an "Armee de l'air" French Air force cap, with it's gold wheat filigree, and was approached just outside Washington DC by a guy confused as to what service branch I'd been in, he still said, "I thank you for your service." I felt that that old "questioning," question from Viet Nam had finally died a proper death. PFC O'Neill had been able to develop expert marksmanship by 20, and that was likely all the control he could muster over his hormones. Honoring those kids is all we can do `cause we fear and know, we know, we'll have to call them up again and again in future, terrible, unforgiving minutes. To paraphrase Mullaney, "Nation, Take Care of Our Soldiers."
The Unforgiven - Men behaving badly. October 13, 2009
mark jabbour (Laporte, Colorado)
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
THE UNFORGIVING MINUTE: A Soldier's Education, (2009) by Craig M. Mullaney is a well-written, honest, account of war. It is soul-searching, heart rendering and a page-turner. Mullaney is a West Point graduate, An Army Ranger, a Rhodes scholar, a combat veteran of Afghanistan, and a professor of history at the U.S. Naval Academy. I think everyone should read this book. I give it five stars. That said, I think it would be better titled: A Soldier's Education: Men Behaving Badly. For all his formal and existential education, I do not think Mullaney "gets it." "IT" being what he tries desperately to uncover in the telling of his story. IT leaps from almost every page. IT is the story of Displaced Aggression--it is the story of war from the beginning of time. It is a story of rape. Rape being: Imposing a more powerful person's will (the father, the army, the Nation) on less powerful, or in some cases, helpless, others. Then the perpetrator rearranges his behavior in his own mind as "this is for your own good," and tries to convince his victim of that.
Men behaving badly and making excuses for it.
Mullaney knows this at some level but cannot quite say it. He needs to believe that the "doing of the thing" (combat) is what heroes and honor are made of (The Hero Complex.). That is like raping a girl, but insisting upon doing it well so that she will bond to you, and then calling it love. He is at war with his father--a bully and a coward (a Working Class Hero)--but cannot face him. Moreover, in the end, he cannot even dissuade his younger brother to take a different path than that of "warrior."
The myth persists.
An example (there are many): In a battle in the mountains of Afghanistan, a US soldier is killed. The "enemy" is completely destroyed--they count sixty bodies. Mullaney views this as a personal failure, is devastated, and then seeks revenge. The U.S. military extracts it. Sixty to one, a hundred to one, a thousand to one? Body counts. The "enemy" is dehumanized and killed without remorse or regret. One U.S. soldier's death is tragic and has ripple effects throughout the "civilized" world. Never mind that the "warriors" on the other side also have fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, cousins, who mourn their death. We create more "enemies" as we "help" the people of Afghanistan. Does Mullaney know this? Yes!!!! He says so on page 362: "The best thing we could have done for Afghanistan was to get out of our Humvees and drink more green chai. We should have focused less on finding the enemy, and more on finding our friends." He goes on, "Getting the strategy right hadn't been my responsibility. My mission had been to fight well and bring my men home, although we had fought well, I had failed to bring every soldier back."
Hey, Craig--it's war! People get killed. But wait, there's more: "Successfully leading in combat required faith in the perfectibility of my men and myself." Hey, Craig ... human beings are not capable of being perfect. Not your father and not you. Your responsibility was to your family first, not to your men. If you had "fought" the battle with your father you wouldn't be trying to create perfect soldiers (my men) and perfect battles. You KNOW that is not possible!!
There is failure, lots of it and Mullaney knows this. In chapter heading quotes, he often sites references to failure. War is stupid. It is about men behaving badly--men failing in their primary responsibility, and displacing rage and aggression on less powerful others. In some cases it is about defending--your territory, property, and loved ones. One could argue that is noble and justified. On his reading list, which he includes, should be two books: "The Territorial Imperative," (1961) by Robert Ardrey, an English playwright; and my novel: Attachment; a novel of war and peace. (2006) http://www.amazon.com/Attachment-m-e-Jabbour/dp/1425710395
Excellent, but not for those who want easy propaganda or endless battle stories October 13, 2009
Michael (NY, USA)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
As I browse the reviews here, they appear to be divided between 5-star ratings from people who loved the book, and a number of 2-star ratings from people who are bored by Mullaney's time at Oxford, disappointed with his navel-gazing after losing a member of his platoon, disgusted by the way he turns his back on his father, and consider the fact that he leaves the armed forces after his 5 years are up as proof of his lack of character.
This is not a gung-ho war memoir designed to thrill the reader with tales of unflinching leadership, selfless bravery and unquestioning duty. It is not a piece of military propaganda. If that's what you want, go watch G.I. Joe. Rather, it is an incredibly intelligent and self-aware tale of a man fortunate enough to possess not only a "warrior" side which pushes him through the Rangers course, but also a "scholar" half which allows him to analyze his experiences.
The book is possibly the best antidote to the fact that our armed forces are quite often misunderstood and underappreciated by the public in general. Mullaney bridges the divide between our civilian lives and the military life by showing how he slid between one and the other, back and forth again, posing many important questions on the way which strike to the heart of democracy and war. To those who criticize the number of pages spent on his time at Oxford, I believe they serve to place his military experience in a wider setting, indeed contrasting it with what might possibly be its most polar opposite.
And to those who criticize the way Mullaney turned his back on his father after his father turned his back on his family, there really isn't enough information in the book to know what happened. But it does show the crucial role that the father-son relationship plays for many men, including those in the Army, and I commend him for including it, rather than glossing over it to paint a prettier picture of himself. Indeed, I can't help but think that those who are so bothered by these passages, might have similar issues which they themselves are afraid to face.
This is a book for the thinking civilian. For those who have recently served in the Army, this book might not be very interesting, since you will have lived much of what he talks about, and very few pages are devoted to firefights. If you don't want to be made to think about how military and civilian life intersect, or you don't want to think about how relationships and psychology affect a soldier's decisions, then this book isn't for you. And if a few pages about his relationship with his future wife will irreparably stain what you think should be devoted entirely to fighting and war, then please do not pick it up. But if you want perhaps the most accessible narrative written so far of what it is like today for a thinking man who enters the military, then I doubt there are more than a few people today who could write a better book than this.
General Wesley Clark called the book "a true privilege to read" for a reason. "A powerful narrative of purpose, responsibility, courage, and personal growth. Every young man and woman in America should read this book." I couldn't agree more, and wouldn't hesitate to put it on the required reading list of every high school in the country.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 160
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