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In his first three Commanders books, Tom Clancy teamed with Generals Fred Franks, Jr., Chuck Horner, and Carl Stiner to provide masterful blends of history, biography, you-are-there narrative, insight into the practice of leadership, and plain, old-fashioned storytelling. Battle Ready is all of that-and it is also something more.
Marine General Tony Zinni was known as the "Warrior Diplomat" during his nearly forty years of service. As a soldier, his credentials were impeccable, whether leading troops in Vietnam, commanding hair-raising rescue operations in Somalia, or-as Commander in Chief of CENTCOM-directing strikes against Iraq and Al Qaeda. But it was as a peacemaker that he made just as great a mark-conducting dangerous troubleshooting missions all over the globe, Africa, Asia, and Europe; and then serving as Secretary of State Colin Powell's special envoy to the Middle East, before disagreements over the 2003 Iraq War and its probable aftermath caused him to resign.
Tom Clancy's Battle Ready follows the evolution of both General Zinni and the Marine Corps, from the cauldron of Vietnam through the operational revolution of the seventies and eighties, to the new realities of the post-Cold War, post-9/11 military-a military with a radically different job and radically different tools for accomplishing it. It is an eye-opening book-a front-row seat to a man, an institution, and a way of both war and peace that together make this an instant classic of military history.
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More than a warrior's wisdom
In the summer of 1994, I attended a change-of-command ceremony at Camp Pendleton for the I Marine Expeditionary Force. A new 3-star was about to take command prematurely for someone of his seniority. He hadn't even been a division commander, a 2-star billet. The fast-tracking general was Tony Zinni and the rest of his career continued to rocket. Other reviewers have commented on every aspect of his book, including his lack of support for the invasion of Iraq, so I will focus on two parts that impressed me deeply. I do agree with several others that having Tom Clancy as a co-author was distracting and unnecessary. The alternating first and third-person narratives were uneven at times. Thus the 4-stars. But then again, "Battle Ready" is not a literary selection.
The first part was Zinni's 1967 tour as an adviser (called "co van" for "trusted friend" with the Vietnamese Marine Corps). Many accounts have been published about Marines in Vietnam but only handful has come from advisers; the very best Marine officers were selected for advisory duty. Other "co vans" include Gens. Boomer, Hoar, and Myatt--on the Army side, McCaffrey, Powell and Schwarzkopf. All of these men experienced a different Vietnam War than those who fought in American units.
Why is Zinni's advisory experience relevant now? Marine advisers are mentoring Iraqis, and they could only dream their counterparts fought like the South Vietnamese. There's no hubris in Zinni's observations. He understood the Americans' lack of cultural knowledge, including his own early on: "The advisers' job was not to give the Vietnamese Marines tactical advice (they had more fighting experience than most Americans, and it was their country...American commanders were all in a hurry. They wanted to end the war on their one-year tour of duty. Vietnamese [Marine] commanders realized they would be in it for the duration."
The last chapter, Chapter Eight titled "The Calling," is a classic leadership primer-observations made over the distinguished 40-year career of Zinni, a Marine warrior, scholar and leader. As a former Marine, I found his last paragraph most touching: "I have been all over this globe and exposed to most of the cultures on it. I am fascinated by them. I love the diversity. I want to understand them and embrace them. I could never understand prejudice or rejection or the sense of superiority that drive the hatemongers of the world. I lived through a tumultuous period of our history when our own minorities broke from second-class citizenship into full participation in this wonderful dream we call America. I have been proud of their accomplishments and contributions. They have proven the bigots wrong and made our nation greater. I hope the dream we have struggled to realize can be extended to the rest of the planet."
General, it was my privilege to serve under commanders like you. Semper fi!
Old Fashion Biography Written With Clancy's help
This a bit of an odd book being part military biography, part recollections and part free streaming - the last chapter his reflection on where we are in the world. But that part is minor -and it is mainly a good old fashioned biography less a family/boyhood section. In general it is an interesting read - Clancy being such a good writer and Zinni with the interesting story. In any case Zinni provides many comments and recollections while Clancy seems to edit and write to fill in the gaps between Zinni's descriptions of his career and Clancy provides the context and overall perspectives. The book would have been a lot better with some photos and maps and some parts a bit shorter and some longer with more writing by Clancy. There is a reasonable index but no references or bibliography. For myself the Vietnam section is the most compelling read along with his time as a middle east peace envoy near the end of the book. His years in training etc. and different assignments 1975 to 1990 are a bit of a yawn, and some parts with no photos and dry discussions of his mid career make it a bit slow. The book is good but not great. Dear authors: add photos and maps in the next or paperback version!
The book opens with a brief introduction to Zinni as CINC commander for the first 22 pages and then drops back to the beginning of his career where we find him in Vietnam. The next 100 pages covers the young lieutenant Zinni. Quickly we find him directing artillery fire on his first assignment. In his second combat experience he travels (naively) by himself by common Vietnamese bus to the Mekong Delta - Rung Sat. The oppressive heat, rivers, canals, jungle and the lurking VC (fighters by night farmers by day) all remind me very much of the recent book that I read on John Kerry - "Tour of Duty" - do not laugh! There is more in common than one might expect in some of their Vietnam stories.
I make the comparison with Kerry because Kerry and his men I think were average soldiers that came to serve, put in their time, do their part, and they wanted to leave - alive. Here we see a different picture with Zinni. He is a professional soldier first and seems less concerned about his own safety and he wants to stay in Vietnam with his fellow marines. He is very aggressive trying to fight when sick and wounded. Both Kerry and Zinni try to avoid the killing of civilians and to protect their men. But in general his early assignment are more like a "baseball utility player" or junior executive learning the ropes of the "marines corporation". He is sent around Vietnam where he fights as a back up with different groups of Vietnamese and US marines - not tied to one group like Kerry was - and he always seems to be in very active areas where you do not have time for reflection - as did Kerry. But like Kerry, he sometimes appearing to operate on gut instinct and adrenaline. For Zinni it was a time of learning and fighting.
He fights in the delta in the narrow rivers and jungle and swamps, near where Kerry had his Swift boat, then on to the central region of Binh Dinh, fighting with the Vietnamese marines where booby traps were a daily threat. Some of those Vietnamese marines that survived post war imprisonment by the north came to the US later with their families. He is assigned to a region near Saigon. He fights until so sick and with a low body weight he is forced to take a medical leave returning to the US for two years. Regaining his strength he returns and is promoted to commanding officer, Company A, 1 st battalion, 5th marines. There he suffers serious wounds from AK-47 fire and is evacuated by helicopter from the Que Son mountains. For both Zinni and Kerry, I think the Vietnam experience formed their characters.
The book goes on to chronicle his post war experiences in Okinawa, his ship-to-shore marine training, promotions to major and colonel, war college, and then promotion to general in 1989. He was in Israel during the Gulf war as a liaison officer with the patriot missile brigade. He spent time in Europe, the Pacific, led the Somalia effort and was promoted to run CENCOM. He was a man of action, always was volunteering for active marine assignments and he found retirement difficult. He tried to be a special peace envoy to the Middle East but was thwarted by the Palestinian division and violence. All in all this is a good book although I found some of the middle sections between Vietnam and Somalia a bit slow, but otherwise it is an interesting book, but not a real barn burner. The Vietnam part of 100 pages out of the 440 total is the most compelling and perhaps the most revealing.
Not a very accurate account
May be superb as far as its descriptive content and details are concerned, but there are glaring errors interspersed with this. For example, as the publisher's review states on this page that after his Somalia "stint" in 1993, Zinni went to areas " previously obscure for the US, like Pakistan..." That is a highly irresponsible statement, if not a lie. As a citizen of this unfortunate country (Pakistan), I can vouch that Pakistan has ALWAYS been an important and central tool of US activity and global policy in this key region. Starting from the mid-1950s, when Pakistan was just 6 years into its existence - it was consecutively a key member of the two major US anti-communist regional treaty alliances SEATO and then CENTO. Following that, it was the central hotbed of US mischief in the 1980s and 1990s against the USSR and the Afghan Revolution, cultivating the "Mujahideen" resistance followed by the Taliban (which the US and Pakistan jointly formed to try and dominate Central Asian oil reserves and pipelines), and the US in 1989 also formed Al-Qaeda here, which now serves as an excuse for US military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan which is really all about oil. It is well known to proper analysts that Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban leader Mullah Omar are still CIA assets... That it why they remain "at large". Who says that Pakistan and its loathsome, servile rulers are only now "central" to US global mis-doings? They have ALWAYS been. That this book infers otherwise shows just how misinformed and complacent ordinary Americans and their commentators are.
And as far as General Anthony Zinni's opposition to the current US policy in Iraq is concerned, all such gentlemen write "mea culpa" memoirs when they retire. Zinni should remember his mischievous activities and comings and goings here PRIOR to his retirement, in which he laid the foundation for what was to come, and what he "opposes" now. It is easy to oppose one's previous conduct and associations once retired. That is merely trying to clear one's name, fraudulently. I can count to you umpteen such Nazi, US and Pakistani "celebrity" Generals and others who have done the same. The challenge is to do it while in service: "Hic Rhodus, Hic Salta!"
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More than a warrior's wisdom 
Not a very accurate account 
