I hadn’t planned to read the book American Sniper given the rather public challenges made to the late author Chris Kyle’s honesty. But then a student challenged me not to make assumptions based on something I hadn’t read, so I opted to give it a read. The net result was I didn’t like the book very much. Setting aside the honesty issues, and even setting aside my thoughts on Chris Kyle’s views of war (he described it as “fun” in his prologue), it just wasn’t very well-written. As an author, he wasn’t terribly introspective. The book was incredibly light on details, written as little more than a series of stories that usually ran for at most two or three pages each, all designed to show what a badass he was. And “badass” was his word. It was basically an incredibly shallow book. The only part I liked was when he took a few pages to describe his gear and weapons. He actually went into sufficient detail there, giving the reader a good deal of information, and it was on a subject he really cared enough about to describe. A friend who also read American Sniper and was likewise unimpressed said Kyle’s history of firearms is a much better book.
What does all this have to do with A Tactical Ethic: Moral Conduct in the Insurgent Battlespace? Well, the author of this book is one Dick Couch, a military ethicist. Chris Kyle recounted hearing a lecture Couch made to Kyle and his fellow SEALs about the importance of morality in combat, and Kyle essentially blew the man’s views off as naive or foolish. I figured I should give Dick Couch’s work a look for that reason alone.
Now, this was a rather short work, and it was written back in 2010. Couch, a Vietnam Vet, Naval Academy graduate and ethics instructor, and a Medal of Honor winner, is describing a very specific set of circumstances, namely the at-the-time ongoing insurgency in both Iraq in Afghanistan. As I write this, the United States is no longer battling an insurgency in Iraq. Afghanistan is another story, and Iraq has had its own unique problems since the American withdrawal, but that’s neither here nor there. Essentially, Couch is acknowledging that given the pressures caused by insurgencies, one where soldiers and Marines can go long periods of time between combat but then have to deal with enemy forces that can literally slip in and out of crowds, that the pressures to do things morally correctly at all times, knowing that when someone does something wrong, can cause more problems for American military forces in the region.
Now, Couch does not set out to write out explicit lists of right and wrong. That isn’t his purpose. He likewise acknowledges that a military engagement has a high probability to end with someone dead. It comes in part down to making sure that when American forces dispense violence, they do appropriately. That is no easy task, but it isn’t something someone with a true sense of being a warrior shouldn’t be unable to do. It’s just a matter of trying. If anything, Couch’s book is less about what is right and wrong so much as it is about the importance of maintaining right and wrong in hostile territory. That comes with junior and senior leadership putting down strict Rules of Engagement and sticking to them.
Couch’s writing is, given the philosophical nature of the work, rather easy to read. He explains the problems of immoral men–and he’s talking almost exclusively about men as they are the ones who will see front line action–in a battlespace or just waiting to go there as a detriment to the mission. He even refers to them as “pirates”. While Couch may not offer a strict moral guideline for soldiers and Marines, he does offer instead tips for leaders to decide in advance what is and isn’t right and how to enforce that ethos while in uniform.
That said, this obviously isn’t a book for anyone. It’s written largely for people in uniform, something that does not include me. It does offer insight for civilians like myself, but at the same time, he didn’t write it for that audience. Furthermore, it is a dated book, one where the author takes time to describe a situation that is perhaps no longer true, writing as he did for a very specific time and perhaps place. While insurgency is probably going to continue to be a problem for American military missions, the ones described here are if not over than at least perhaps different from when Couch wrote the book. Finally, he also has a whole chapter devoted to describing the mindset of the at-the-time current American soldier, and that means that Couch did his best to describe Millennial culture. That chapter was a bit awkward. I, like Couch, am not really a fan of MMA or reality television, but even I felt like he was somehow not getting Millennials right, and I’m Generation X. Still, the book is highly readable and offers some good insight into the importance of maintaining moral standards alongside the physical and mental ones for the men and women in uniform.
Grade: B
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