Iron Bravo

Rating:
Summary: Almost got it right.
Review: For the reader with military experience, this book is a tough read. The concept was good-tracking an NCO through his career from Viet Nam to Iraq- was right on the money. However, Stroud could have benefitted from an editor with military experience. There were so many technical errors, the storyline often gets lost. Wannabes will like like it. Soldiers won't.

Rating:
Summary: It's On The Money
Review: I have to disagree with the previous review. This book does capture the essence of what soldiering is all about. Yes there are several technical errors, but I did not find them to detract from the power of the story. This book reveals the love/hate relationship that so many have with the Army, any Army I dare say. Having departed the institution only a few months ago I feel confident in saying this. There is so much to hate about the profession of arms, but there are those few rare moments - sometimes they occurred years ago - that you still treasure.Somehow those moments can keep one going when everything is at it's worse. That is what Carsten Stroud does in Iron Bravo. The book has wonderful atmosphere - one of Stoud's strengths as a writer - and presents the mind of the professional soldier beautifully. This book dosen't place the soldier on a platform, it merely shows them warts and all. And in my opinion the soldier comes out shining.

Rating:
Summary: The face of battle as seen by the NCO
Review: In a modern high-tech army, where officers move from one comand to another as they move up the ranks, it is the NCOs who have become the repositories of the history and tradition of the military. Iron Bravo is a semi-fictional account of the history of the US infantry as seen and understod by one NCO- a lifer named Crane- through his knowledge of unit history, his memories of Vietnam and his experience in returning to war in the Gulf. Stroud spent a year with the 1st, and this book is a compilation of the experiences of various soldiers, retold as the story of Sgt. Crane.

There have been a great many books written about the experience of the infantryman through history, many of them excellent; what Carsten Stroud brings is a perspective over time. He's a combat veteran of Vietnam and a student of history, and he understands what it is that is common to the experience of the foot soldier throughout history. He takes pains to show how it it is that experiences of individual infantrymen through history constitute an unbroken thread across nations and through time. Stroud's description of the advance of the US 1st Armored Division through Iraq and his parallels to the WWII battle of the Kasserine Pass is particularly illustrative.

While not a scholarly history, neither is this the typical I-was-there story. It's a unique way of telling the infantryman's story, and as such, of interest to readers of both combat stories and military history.

Rating:
Summary: al
Review: So many technical errors that it should be labled as a fairy tale. Cannot be believe it was printed! I paid a dime for the book at a yard sale and feel ripped off!