Book Review- "No Easy Day"

It was my pleasure this week to read the book “No Easy Day”, written by one of the Navy Seal’s who was on the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. There is some flap about this book in the media & government because, evidently, the author did not have the book vetted by the Department of Defense. They claim he was bound by contract to do this, others state that he was not. I don’t know, nor do I care about the government’s technicalities.

For fans of military affairs this was a good read and since it was written by a soldier who was there, I would trust that his story is more reliable than a lot of the reports we got at the time from the media. As far as revealing any “secrets”, as some of the media claim, I find that accusation rather lame. Any of the details about how the Seals operate are in line with any other public stories I have read. Anyone who has read any recently published novel on the war against terrorist will have already read about the basic tactics used by Special Forces in this decade long war.

I do find it somewhat disturbing that some “suits” in the government want to take legal action against the author, who spent 10 years laying his life on the line in very dangerous operations against our nations enemies. All the while the “suits” sit safely behind their desk and never do anything more risky than drive their car to work.

As for my opinion, our soldiers are doing the public a great favor by telling their personal stories in this long war, which is far from over. Never mind that the U.S. is suppose to be out of Afghanistan within 2 years, that will not be the end of this war with terrorists in the Moslem community. It is extremely naïve to believe that the forces behind the Moslem terrorists will just go away once we leave Iraq and Afghanistan. The clerics who are preaching jihad against the west are not going to just sit down and be quiet once we withdraw. The war will go on until a generation of Moslem leaders emerge who give up terrorism as a weapon. That will not be happening anytime soon.

Contrary to some of the critics, there is not much about politics in this book. I won’t spoil the story by revealing what small mention the author makes concerning the use some politicians attempt to make concerning the killing of Osama bin Laden, but the point of the book is to tell the story of this event from the viewpoint of a “boot” on the ground.

You won’t be disappointed if you read the book, that is if you are one who is interested in this war from a soldiers shoes.