Reddit Reddit reviews One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer

We found 20 Reddit comments about One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer
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20 Reddit comments about One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer:

u/halberdier25 · 51 pointsr/Military

Don't forget to also read Fick's One Bullet Away.

Generation Kill was written by the embedded Rolling Stone reporter, but One Bullet Away was written by the officer commanding that platoon.

u/VA_Network_Nerd · 45 pointsr/USMCboot

The meme response is to advise you to apply judicious quantities of alcohol until the feelings subside.

Your feelings sound perfectly rational to me.

Many Commandants as well as Gen Mattis have advocated for learning from those who have gone before us from their teachings recorded in books & stories.

You might find some comfort in the stories of those who have already walked this path.

https://www.amazon.com/Biggest-Brother-Major-Winters-Brothers/dp/0451218396

https://www.amazon.com/One-Bullet-Away-Making-Officer/dp/0618773436/

https://www.amazon.com/Helmet-My-Pillow-Parris-Pacific/dp/1977052304/

https://www.amazon.com/Old-Breed-At-Peleliu-Okinawa/dp/0891419063/

https://www.amazon.com/Im-Staying-My-Boys-Basilone/dp/0312611447/

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Before you engage your chain of command, I encourage you to seek out a more junior combat veteran in your unit and discuss your unease.

I'm not saying "Don't engage your CoC." I'm suggesting you try getting guidance from a pseudo-peer first.

u/extremelyinsightful · 14 pointsr/WarCollege

Very much so. The reporter was embedded in a truck with a specific Squad Leader. You end up seeing the whole invasion over-the-shoulder of just that Squad Leader. Gen Mattis is just a cameo and the whole US Army doesn't exist except for a brief mention of Jessica Lynch's convoy getting captured. It's a very narrow (albeit uniquely and redeemingly indepth) view of the invasion.

As mentioned elsewhere in the thread, the Platoon Leader, Nathaniel Fick, published his own account if you want to contrast the view from literally just one echelon higher.

https://www.amazon.com/One-Bullet-Away-Making-Officer/dp/0618773436

u/speedy_43 · 12 pointsr/Military

I enjoyed it. From what I've heard, it's pretty accurate. However, I did prefer Nathan Fick's One Bullet Away.

u/MisguidedChild · 7 pointsr/Military
u/couldntchangelogin · 7 pointsr/CombatFootage

I liked reading Generation Kill too. With that in mind, I would like to add One Bullet Away By Nate Fick.

u/EndsWithMan · 7 pointsr/movies

If you liked Generation Kill, read the book "One Bullet Away" written by Nathaniel Fick who was one of the officers covered by Generation Kill (which was started from a Rolling Stone article written by Evan Wright.)

u/sloperator · 6 pointsr/USMC

I suppose that depends on when you "don't make it."

If you drop out of OCS, or get injured at PLC/OCS, I'm not sure how willing they are to take a chance on you again, but they might if it's medical.

If you decide the USMC isn't for you, or fail out of school, you have to pay the gov't for the loans. I'm pretty sure they make this very clear when you accept your NROTC scholarship. In fact, I'm extremely sure you have to sign an agreement to pay the loans back, barring any extraneous circumstances.

And I really would like to think that NROTC scholarships are rare and exclusive enough that they are not handed out like candy.

Are you interested in Air, Ground or Law?
Please do yourself a favor and read One Bullet Away.

u/BrotherJayne · 4 pointsr/Military

? What? That book is awesome! And so's the one Fick wrote

Edit: Fick's book: https://www.amazon.com/One-Bullet-Away-Making-Officer/dp/0618773436/

The TV show is pretty good too!

u/lowspeedlowdrag · 3 pointsr/USMC

Check out the Commandant's Reading list recommendations for Officer Candidates. I'd add One Bullet Away and What it's Like to go to War to that list as well.

How is your general knowledge? Do you know all of your Troop Leading Steps, Leadership Traits, General Orders, and Operational Order sub-paragraphs?

u/oi_nihonjin · 2 pointsr/CredibleDefense

> From personal experience military intelligence is an oxymoron.

Unfortunately, anecdotally this is too true for most military's. Information in the modern world changes so rapidly that the military bureaucracy and chain of command tend's to do nothing more then to just slow down the rate at which accurate info is provided to front line troops.

A great example is in the now famous Generation Kill and One Bullet Away. The unit is constantly supplied with FRAGO's and new mission objectives based on faulty and outdated information that time and time again places them in ambushes, traps, and situations where the only reason they leave alive is because of the ineptitude of the enemy, not their own skill.

u/picatdim · 2 pointsr/pics

I'm a 19-year-old boy from Ottawa, Canada (you may have heard of our little country :P ). While I was not homeschooled per se during my public school years (I went to regular English schools), I definitely learned more quickly, more thoroughly and more widely due to my parents' constant efforts to teach me things that went way above and beyond what I was "learning" at my high school.

My parents are both high school teachers, and have each spent roughly 30 years teaching their respective subjects.

My dad actually just retired last year, but he taught most of the Social Studies curriculum during the course of his career (History, Philosophy, Psychology, World Religions, etc.). He is a bilingual Francophone from Ottawa, so he taught at one of the French Catholic high schools in our area. He also happens to be somewhat skeptical of religion (not an atheist, but damned close). Odd combination, yes, but it has resulted in him introducing me to
military history, everything from the Roman legions to the Knights Templar to the Taliban.

My mother was born in Ottawa, to Greek parents who had left Greece after the Second World War; my grandparents are from a village about 20 minutes away from the modern city of Sparti (Sparta). During the war, the village was at some point occupied by Axis forces (I'm not sure when or to what extent, because my grandparents' English is not great and only my mother speaks Greek).

I decided to include a list (below) of works that I've found particularly interesting (I've never actually written down a list of my favs before, so this may be somewhat... sprawling and will be in no particular order :P ). Depending on the ages of your kids, some of this stuff might be inappropriate for them right now, but they can always check it out when they're older. It's mostly military/wartime history that interests me (it's what I plan on studying in university), but I've learned so many little tidbits about other things as well from having access to these works. Since your kids are all boys, I hope they'll find at least some of this stuff to be interesting :) .


Books

u/sekret_identity · 2 pointsr/USMC

Bro,
I don't know much but I know this.

Leadership is service.

It's not about you.

Real leadership looks like this:

  • protecting your guys from bullshit from above
  • looking out for their welfare and checking in on them
  • holding them to a high standard and yourself an even higher one
  • balancing men vs mission aggression vs caution
  • knowing your shit so well you cannot fuck up in any circumstance
  • knowing their shit so well they cannot fuck up

    Read this book

    http://www.amazon.com/One-Bullet-Away-Making-Officer/dp/0618773436


u/richalex2010 · 2 pointsr/USMC

I suggest reading One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer; it's an autobiography that gives a lot of insight into the sort of path you want to take, as well as the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions (the author is the Lt. Fick depicted in Generation Kill). Someone who is actually in the military would be able to better vouch for the accuracy of the book, but my impression is that it's a pretty solid account.

u/JokerNJ · 2 pointsr/running

Avoid treadmills. If you haven't already, read Nate Fick's book 'One bullet away'.
From memory he scored well on the 3 mile run but had to give it 100%.

u/TheTruthYouHate1 · 1 pointr/Military
u/coolhand83 · 1 pointr/GetMotivated

I read this for the first time today, in this book. Weird coincidence...

Highly recommend the book by the way, it's written by the Lieutenant from the TV series Generation Kill.

u/monkeyball3 · -2 pointsr/uwo

Looking at other options after the corporate world. I was surprised at the number of Ivy league graduates in the US military (check out http://www.amazon.com/One-Bullet-Away-Making-Officer/dp/0618773436, great read).

I get the whole IBD circlejerk, but there are definitely a host of options after HBA, or down the road as an aspect of your career.