Nathan Sassaman

Crush the ant with a sledgehammer - that seems to be how LTC Sassaman approached his tour of duty in Iraq in 2003 as commander of the 1/8 infantry battalion (4th infantry division). First of all, I'm not going to dispute Colonel Sassaman's skills as a warrior or tactician. He definitely leads from the front. However, while the book starts out strong, the latter half seems to devolve into a near endless rant against Sassaman's superiors and how they were so cowardly and incompetent. Now, granted that Sassaman's tactics were in many ways effective, but he seems to have a very narrow-minded view of how to fight a war. As in, his way is the only way. Now, I never fought in Iraq, much less during the time period in which Sassaman did, so I can only critique the writing.

I found Warrior King to be a very candid and telling autobiography of a battalion commander who just wanted to fight his war. There's nothing wrong with that in my opinion. It's not a terrible war memoir, but I didn't find it to be great either. Simply put, pretty average. I found the majority of the book to have a very vindictive air to it. LTC Sassaman is constantly telling the reader how his tactics were the best, his battalion the most aggressive/successful, and how his superiors (particularly his brigade commander) were so cowardly and unwilling to engage the enemy. Now, there may indeed be some truth to his statements. The thing is that, he continually feels the need to repeat them, as if you didn't notice them the first time around. Sassaman also attempts to tie things together with some discussion of the larger strategy and American political failures that lead to Iraq, but again, it comes off as narrow in scope, and a bit odd at that. Rather than looking at such failures objectively, he tries to use them to further justify his methods (again, not that they were poor, just narrow). Another thing is that Sassaman continually and harshly lambasts his brigade commander (whom he actually names), and it all begins to come off like a child pouting about their parents. It was interesting for a while, but it grows tiresome. In many ways, it reads not unlike David Hackworth's About Face or Douglas Macgregor's Warrior's Rage. In fact, all throughout my reading of Warrior King, I kept thinking, "boy this guy sounds so much like "Hack" or Macgregor". All of these memoirs are about officers who seem to have been beaten down and ostracized by the Army, when all they wanted to do was make it better. Nothing wrong with that. However, whereas About Face was epic in scope, and Warrior's Rage was more tasteful in writing, Warrior King simply comes off as whiny, childish, and a bit narcissistic. Sassaman seemed so deadlocked on "winning" that he forgot about subtleties.

So I've criticized Warrior King so much, did I like anything about it? Yes. I enjoyed the candid nature of Sassaman. He really tried to point out the horror and sadness of war, and all the hopelessness and suffering that goes along with it. He doesn't skirt around the details of the violence. I enjoyed the parts when he was describing the daily life of himself and his soldiers at war. As the book progresses, it almost seems as if the author is chronicling his descent into darkness. At one point, he describes the lack of sleep and constant stress as if walking around in a fog. It all began to seem a bit surreal. But I guess that's the nature of the beast.

Overall, I'd give Warrior King 3 out of 5 stars. It's not a bad memoir, but it's sophomoric interpretation of the larger strategic picture and it's whiny tone prevent it from being really moving.… (mehr)