By Craig Mullaney
Rudyard Kipling's poem "If" ends with the following stanza:If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!
Craig Mullaney takes his title from the poem in this really well-written story of a West Point cadet's education, first at Bishop Hendricken High School in RI, then at West Point, then in the army's prestigious Ranger School, then as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. When 9/11 breaks forth during his Oxford years, Craig's fate is sealed and he heads to Afghanistan where his platoon is caught in a firefight with Al Qaeda fighters. While his short stint is successful, a soldier dies during his watch. Even though the soldier is not in his unit at the time, it is wrenching to read of Craig's remorse and sense of loss and failure. This memoir serves as an eye-opening window into what it takes to become a soldier and a leader of men. Craig's personal goals and family experiences are interwoven with the story and, in that sense, becomes an experience most of us can identify with.
As the soldier is from Rhode Island, the book spoke of many familiar places.
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