Hazardous Duty: America's Most Decorated Living Soldier Reports from the Front and Tells It the Way It Is.

• Author: Ricks, Thomas E.

By David H. Hackworth William Morrow, $27

Reading David Hackworth's new book is like spending an evening drinking in a bar with a smart, talkative U.S. Army sergeant. You'll learn a lot. You'll have some fun. And, when he turns belligerent, you might get a punch or two thrown at you.

I was prepared to trash this book. If anyone has demonstrated that it is possible to stuff 10 pounds of bull into a five-pound bag, it is David Hackworth--or as it says at the top of every other page in this book, "Colonel David H. Hackworth." When he blows, he blows hard. "One burst from an AK-47 or an incoming RPG could turn the Grungies into colanders and anyone in them to salad dressing," he writes at one point in his inquiry into the October 1993 firefight in Mogadishu that killed 18 American soldiers. And I laughed at his description of his "Deep Throat" source in Haiti who dished the inside skinny. I'm pretty sure from his description that this inside man was the same guy I and a dozen other journalists interviewed over beers in the garden of the Hotel Montana, up in the plush suburbs overlooking Port-au-Prince. It is unlikely that there was more than one garrulous Canadian advising the Haitian junta and talking to reporters.

But once you get past the swaggering persona, Hackworth, who retired spectacularly from the army 25 years ago, makes a lot of sense. He is at his best when he is talking about, and talking to, the soldier in the trenches. Listen to him describe the first U.S. troops in Bosnia in December 1995 from the 1st Brigade of the Army's 1st Armored Division: "During the time I spent with them I never saw a soldier out of uniform, a dirty weapon, an unalert warrior, and I never heard a leader raise his voice." I was there with those troops, and that is a better description than I was able to write at the time. It hits the key points of how soldiers behave, and how they are commanded. I was aware that the 1st Brigade, commanded by Col. Gregory Fontenot, had about the most crackerjack chain of command I'd ever seen. Hackworth's precise description reflects his knowledge of what is important to notice in a military operation. He is similarly good at pointing out how badly run the U.S. 10th Mountain Division was when it was in Haiti, undercutting its morale.

He also hits the nail on the head in underscoring the single greatest scandal in our military, the continuing imbalance between the resources devoted to acquiring high-tech gear and the...