It Doesn’t Take a Hero: The Autobiography of General Norman Schwarzkopf

This is Norman Schwarzkopf’s story. If you didn’t know, Schwarzkopf spent 30+ years in the US military, eventually finding himself in command of Half a million troops during Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm in early 1990’s.

As expected, after a brief discription of his childhood and his early experiences in Vietnam, the book concentrates on the events surrounding the Iraq invasion of Kuwait and the world’s response. Interestingly, we see how the Gulf war was not only about turning back an invader that threatened a US ally and important source of energy, it was ‘proofing ground’ for much of the junior officials who served in the US in Vietnam. Now in position of command, this group wanted and needed to prove to themselves that the changes they’ve implemented corrected the mistakes in the US military. If you wanted to get a military view from the US perspective on this war, this is a great book. Not only that, Schwarzkopt comes off as a geniiuely decent man, irregardless of you agree or disagree wiith this particular decisions during the war.