Note: I’m reprinting this entry from September 14, 2006, which was originally published on another blog.

As memoirs go, you have to take in all the written details with a grain of salt. The perceptions of the author aren’t always shared by others who witnessed the same event or shared the same ordeal in the same place at the same moment. That is, after all, how history has always been recorded: different points of view and opinions shape one single action into a complete story. However, it doesn’t mean that every view is accurate, but each one still contributes significantly to the historical record if it’s remembered a hundred years from now.

Last year I read Generation Kill by Evan Wright, and I liked it very much because it was straightforward and uncensored. Then I discovered that one of the Marine officers that Wright had met while embedded with the First Recon Battalion had also written a book, and I was finally able to buy it last week. Well, let me tell you - One Bullet Away by Nathaniel Fick is great reading.

Wright and Fick’s separate accounts do complement one another, even from their different angles. One of the most amusing similarities both share is the caricature of the incompetent Bravo Company commander and the equally idiotic battalion second-in-command, the sergeant major. Of course, there was also Major “Benelli,” another Officer Dufus. All three of these gentlemen remain “anonymous” in both books, or are given mocking nicknames to reflect the disgust and dislike of the Marines under their command by the time they pulled out of Iraq.

Anyway, I can’t recommend Fick’s book highly enough. Five stars.