Military Review English Edition May-June 2016 | Page 141

BOOK REVIEWS

media and the news in real-time. This allowed the
leaders to direct the terrorist operation and react to the
Indian response to the attack. The distinction between
types of present and future conflicts is no longer that of
regular or irregular warfare. Conflicts will be more of
a hybrid kind in, which the military aspect is just one
part of the puzzle. Therefore, a comprehensive effort
combining the effects of all government institutions
with local knowledge is required to resolve potential
conflicts and prevent them fro m escalating.
Although Kilcullen’s target audience includes
people involved in defining policies and strategies
at the national level, anyone interested in or dealing
with conflict resolution at any level can benefit from
his views and theories presented in the book. Unlike
his previous books, Out of the Mountains provides
few implementable recommendations, especially at
the tactical level. However, just like the counterinsurgency strategies in Iraq and Afghanistan did not
materialize overnight, solutions must evolve over
time. Admitting that there are challenges to meet is
the first step toward a solution, and Kilcullen does a
good job defining these. Whether Kilcullen is right in
his predictions, it is not known until the future has
become the past. One can only hope that the message of using a comprehensive approach in which the
military is only one part of the solution will reach the
right people in time.

Maj. Kenneth Boesgaard, Danish Special
Operations Command, Monterey, California

13 SOLDIERS: A Personal History
of Americans at War

John McCain and Mark Salter, Simon & Schuster,
New York, 2014, 384 pages

W

hen an author decides to write a biography or collection of biographies, he or she
will always face a number of obstacles
to overcome. One of the biggest obstacles is trying to
convey to an audience the importance of the deeds
committed that are being discussed by the person. It
is easy to write of the deeds of well-known soldiers.
All one has to do is look at the military history section
of a library to see the truth in this. Where the true
MILITARY REVIEW  May-June 2016

difficulty begins is finding worthiness in the telling of
the tale of a lesser-known individual.
Arizona Sen. John McCain and Mark Salter, the
authors of the historical biography collection, 13
Soldiers: A Personal History of Americans at War, do
an incredible job of
bringing to life not
only the experiences
and stories of the
individuals being
examined, but also
of those who served
around them. The
book begins with
the experiences
of little-known
Revolutionary War
soldier Pvt. Joseph
Plumb Martin. The
authors hammer on
the consistent privations of Martin
throughout the course of the war. This hammering
produces a silver thread that stretches throughout
the entire text, and was summed up very early in
the work when the two authors asked the question,
“What is it soldiers expect from those whose lives and
liberty they defend?” McCain and Salter answer this
question by saying these soldiers only ever expected
“not fame and no more in compensation than the
modest benefits they are promised”. In short, they
were willing to give it all for next to nothing in return.
McCain and Salter cover soldiers from a wide
variety of social classes and ethnicities, which helps
produce a diversely unique work. Along with that
coverage, they also work to expel some of the widely accepted truths laid out in some other historical
texts. An example of this comes in the biography of
Capt. Edward L. Baker, a buffalo soldier and Medal of
Honor recipient who fought in the Spanish-American
War. While being a well-written biography of Baker,
McCain and Salter go on to contest the widely
accepted role future President Theodore Roosevelt
played in the taking of San Juan Hill. Allegedly, a
certain sergeant by the name of Berry from the 10th
Cavalry, also a buffalo soldier, made it to the hill
before Roosevelt. Roosevelt, however, being the more
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