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American Soldier
by Tommy R. Franks (Reader: Tommy R. Franks)
Product Group: Book
Publisher: HarperAudio (2004-08-03)
ISBN: 0060750103
EAN: 9780060750107
Dewey Decimal #: 355.0092
Binding/Media: Audio Cassette
Edition: Abridged
Release Date: 2004-08-03
SKU: AManPro-0000242
Condition: New
Comments: new, new in box, never opened, tear in shrink wrap, remainder mark through bar code
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
The Commander in Chief of the United States Central Command from July 2000 through July 2003, General Tommy Franks made history by leading American and Coalition forces to victory in Afghanistan and Iraq -- the decisive battles that In this riveting memoir, General Franks retraces his journey from a small-town boyhood in Oklahoma and Midland, Texas, through a lifetime of military service -- including his heroic tour as an Artillery officer in Vietnam, where he was wounded three times. A reform-minded Cold War commander and a shrewd tactician during Operation Desert Storm, Franks took command of CENTCOM at the dawn of what he calls a "crease in history" -- becoming the senior American military officer in the most dangerous region on earth. Now drawing on his own recollections and military records declassified for this book, Franks offers the first true insider’s account of the war on terrorism that has changed the world since September 11, 2001. He puts you in the Operations Center for the launch of Operation Enduring Freedom just weeks after 9/11, capturing its uncertain early days and the history victory that followed. He traces his relationship with the demanding Donald Rumsfeld, as early tensions over the pace of the campaign gave way to a strong and friendly collaboration When President Bush focused world attention on the threat of Iraq, Franks seized the moment to implement a bold new vision of joint warfare in planning Operation Iraqi Freedom. Rejecting Desert Storm-style massive troop deployment in favor of flexibility and speed, Franks was questioned by the defense establishment -- including Secretary of State Colin Powell. Yet his vision was proven on the ground: Within three weeks, Baghdad had fallen. American Soldier is filled with revelation. Franks describes the covert diplomacy that helped him secure international cooperation for the war, and reveals the role of foreign leaders -- and a critical double agent code-named "April Fool" -- in the most successful military deception since D-Day in 1944. He speaks frankly of intelligence shortcomings that endangered our troops, and of the credible WMD threats -- including eleventh-hour warnings from Arab leaders -- that influenced every planning decision. He offers an unvarnished portrait of the "disruptive and divisive" Washington bureaucracy, and a candid assessment of the war’s aftermath. Yet in the end, as American Soldier demonstrates, the battles in Afghanistan and Iraq remain heroic victories -- wars of liberation won by troops whose valor was "unequalled," Franks writes, "by anything in the annals of war." Few individuals have the chance to contribute so much of themselves to the American story as General Tommy Franks. In American Soldier, he captures it all.
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Amazon.com Review
As Commander in Chief of the United States Central Command from July 2000 through July 2003, Tommy Franks led the American and Coalition forces to victory in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Unsurprisingly, the portions of American Soldier covering these wars are the most interesting because they combine military maneuvers, political wrangling, and lots of action and commentary. This does not mean, however, that the rest of his autobiography is dull. General Franks's writing is clear and engaging and his insider's perspective is informative and interesting, particularly when he explains how the military moved into the 21st century by emphasizing speed, agility, and better cooperation among the various branches--a significant shift from the first Persian Gulf war just a decade earlier. In addition to his years as a war general, his memoir also covers his childhood, his early years in the Army, his tours of Vietnam, and how he contemplated retirement before being called up as commander of Central Command, "the most diverse, strategically vital—and unstable—region of the planet." Ever the diplomat, General Franks offers insights, but little criticism of individuals. Other than expressing admiration for his own staff and for President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in particular, he is tight-lipped about any conflict within the administration that may have occurred regarding policy issues. (The one exception is counterterrorism specialist Richard Clarke. "I never received a single operational recommendation, or a single page of actionable intelligence, from Richard Clarke," he writes). He also writes that he was surprised by the absence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that no WMDs were used against American troops. Still, the invasion of Iraq was justified in his eyes: "While we may not have found actual WMD stockpiles, what the Coalition discovered was the equivalent of a disassembled pistol, lying on a table beside neatly arranged trays of bullets." American Soldier is a compelling look at the war on terrorism from one who served on the frontlines as both a warrior and a diplomat. --Shawn Carkonen
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Customer Reviews
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Good Book And Read by The Author
Rating  (5)
Date: 2010-08-15
This book was everything it was said to be.
General Franks voice just comes out shooting straight and gave me a good look at the plans of the wars, the behind the scenes conversations that took place.
Also interweaved through out the book is the life of General Franks from a small boy to the General he is today.
You can not go wrong with this book.
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A Common Man who became Heartland Hero
Rating  (4)
Date: 2010-04-18
While some other reviewers have criticzed the lengthy of this book and I agree it is quite long, this is a book worth reading, whether one is a civilian, military or former military.
General Franks' story resonates with me; with he being a few years older. Like the general, I was a college dropout coming from a family of very meager means. After dropping out of college in Texas, I enlisted in my case the Air Force. Like General Franks, I was afforded the opportunity to become an officer and further like the general, I too was also involved in weeding out the dregs in our military post Viet Nam. When he writes about the barracks cleaning he did in Germany, I can relate for doing the same thing in an assignment in Arizona. Further, like General Franks, I can look back and reflect with a sense of pride, how our military force purified itself in the post Viet Nam era, becoming a force willing and capable of the challenges of a potential Cold War conflict in the 1980s.
There are many of us, now retired from the military who share in part the General Franks story. However, there is much more that commends his biography to future readers.
Unlike General Norman Schwarzkopf who in his biography and telling of his story in Gulf War I; General Tommy Franks does not beat on his chest ranting as Schwarzkopf does of his military pedigree nor of his prowess. What we have in the Franks story is one of a man willing to stand up to the pressure of an egotistical Secretary of Defense, a story of a military leader who truly beleived in the ablity of joint forces to be successful in combat and leader who is truly humble, who understands that the success of a leader come not from himself but from bringing out the best in the team he surrounds himself with.
American Soldier is a story we need to routinely hear, it is a story about the best of American viture; where one from humble beginings can through hard work, faith, and willingless to learn from mentors can become not only a success but also heartland hero.
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Yes Man
Rating  (1)
Date: 2010-04-17
2 out of 3 customers found this reveiw helpful
It is a difficult thing to find fault with a man who has served his country as long as General Franks, but these peans (what else can you call them) to his sagacity and ability call into question the ability of the readers to compare the written word to reality. The fact that Tommy Franks flew out of Baghdad at the moment of his "triumph" negates the fact that the city, indeed the entire nation, was dissolving into flames and chaos while his troops sat on their asses out at the airport. This course of events was due to two decisions that were of Franks own making (or, at the very least, he acquiesced in them). One was the idiotic adhearence ro Rumsfelds' "low footprint" dictum and the other was buying into the most complete American intelligence failure since the run-up to the Tet Offensive of 1968.
The first failure was conditioned by the collapse of the Taliban and the "easy victory" in Afghanistan. The fact that Bin Laden and the bulk of AQ escaped over the mountains into Pakistan (again due to Rumsfelds' sagacity) seemed to have slipped everyone's minds in the equation. The second (which compares only to the Whermacht's complete underestion of Soviet strength and capabilities prior to Operation Barbarossa) illustrates the state into which American intelligence collection and interpretation had fallen in the age of "elint" as opposed to "humint". Weapons of mass destruction vs. guerrilla fanatics roving in technicals.
I suppose that the outcome of all this serves only to illustrate the sorry state into which the American military high command has fallen in the post WWII era. The joint chiefs have become yes men, agreeing with the political higher-ups on every hair-brained scheme they demand, regardless of whether the military authorities truely agree on implementation or not. Vietnam - a guerrilla war (at least at the outset) being fought by a military system designed and armed (strategicaly and doctrinaly) for a nuclear confrontation with the Soviets in Europe. The joint chiefs never liked it, but it was the "only war they had."
William Westmoreland - the only American general to "lose" a war (and who designed the strategy in SEA) - promoted to the joint chiefs. Franks - the implementator of the "victory" in Iraq - flying away and leaving the debacle to others who took four more years to decide (or admit) that they were fighting a another counter-insurgency war. It's not like they were not forewarned, but history (which I assume they teach at West Point) seemed never to have forearmed them. A simple study of the British (or Soviet) experience in Central Asia (or the French experience in Indochina) should have set off some warning bells, but American hubris has never been known for its subtlety.
And we are still in Afghanistan. And we are still in Iraq.
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A Great Military Leader Who Managed To Get Rumsfeld To Work With Him
Rating (5)
Date: 2010-02-01
What really made this audiobook very good was listening to Tommy Franks story in his own words and his own way of talking. He adds to our growing knowledge about the wars. I've certainly read and listened to quite a number of books on the subject. He's a bit different though in that he managed, just by being who he is, to not be threatening to either Rumsfeld or George W. Bush. Not many high-ranking military leaders have done that.
During the Iraq War Tommy Franks actually was accepted by Bush on a friendship level. Franks discipline in avoiding the media must have been a necessary part of what made him non-threatening, but also his thick southern draw appeared to make President Bush comfortable. Franks didn't have anything critical to say about anybody higher up than himself in the chain of command. Where he was critical, it was appropriately concerning those not slated as his superiors.
One has to give Franks credit for understanding the battle issues for taking Baghdad. If this part of his book is to be believed, and I think it is believable, he was an unflappable non-media hound leader who understood the outcome completely even before the war began.
Franks did have some tough moments with Rumsfeld's micromanagement style but cunningly managed Rumsfeld perfectly. He may have been the only military man to do so. I had wished much more of his book could be dedicated to the methods he employed to keep Rumsfeld from ruining his efforts.
Franks describes the Bush inner circle with heaps of compliments, perhaps habit from a man who learned to subordinate his own ego for those of superiors as part of what the Army made him. Unfortunately he does not inform us how to use his methods or even what they are.
I felt proud that America had a soldier like Tommy Franks, the right man at the right time. He also realized the real battle was to conduct nation building and policing the ruined country of Iraq at the same time. He did not play a role in that part.
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I can not recommend this book
Rating  (2)
Date: 2009-01-11
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
Good Soldier, but not a good book. Outstanding performance in OEF and OIF, but this book is too long and too boring. Regretfully, I can not recommend this book to any of my active duty or retired military friends.
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Retail Price: $25.95
Our Price:$3.49
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