Book Review - Moving Mountains: Lessons in Leadership and Logistics from the Gulf War

• Author: Major Michael G. Seidel
• Pages: 06

1999] BOOK REVIEWS 257

MOVING MOUNTAINS:

LESSONS IN LEADERSHIP AND LOGISTICS FROM THE GULF WAR1

REVIEWED BY MAJOR MICHAEL G. SEIDEL2

1. Introduction

   "Running logistics for the Gulf War has been compared to transporting the entire population of Alaska, along with their personal belongings, to the other side of the world, on short notice."3 Between August 1990 and August 1991, the logisticians of the U.S. Armed Forces in Southwest Asia served over "122 million meals, pumped 1.3 billion gallons of fuel, and drove nearly 52 million miles."4 This can be compared to "feeding all the residents of Wyoming and Vermont three meals a day for forty days;" supplying "the [twelve]-month fuel consumption of the District of Columbia, Montana, and North Dakota combined;" and making "more than 100 round trips to the moon."5

   Lieutenant General (Retired) William G. Pagonis and his 22d Support Command (SUPCOM) completed these unprecedented logistical feats. In response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait on 2 August 1990, the United States rapidly deployed forces to Saudi Arabia. This short-notice deployment created an immense logistical task. How do the Armed Forces move over 560,000 soldiers and their equipment to a remote side of the globe, sustain them in the field indefinitely, and then reverse the process?

   This incredible challenge fell on General Pagonis, a career Army logistician with a unique style of leadership and management. Under his leadership, the 22d SUPCOM met the challenge with resounding success.

   General Pagonis' logistical success enabled the quick, decisive U.S. victory against Iraq.

   In Moving Mountains, General Pagonis, with Jeffery L. Cruikshank, presents lessons learned in leadership and logistics from his Gulf War experience. He uses his logistical success as a platform to present lessons in three areas: (1) lessons that leaders, military or civilian, can learn from his leadership style; (2) lessons the Army can apply to its doctrine; and (3) lessons private industry can learn from the military. This review examines the first area. General Pagonis devotes nearly two-thirds of Moving Mountains to the leadership theme of this area and presents various lessons to consider.

   Unfortunately, General Pagonis fails to provide a cogent formula for leadership success. In his attempt to validate his leadership style as a model, he sends mixed messages to the reader. General Pagonis presents his leadership lessons in two sections: his life-long memoirs and a textual leadership outline. In his memoirs, he sends mixed messages by presenting lessons with conflicting leadership values. He highlights positive leadership values in some lessons and then contradicts them with lessons that convey negative or questionable values. Next, in his leadership outline, General Pagonis sends mixed messages through the conflicting application and superficial treatment of his lessons. First, this review provides a synopsis of Moving Mountains. Second, it focuses on the mixed messages presented in his memoirs. Last, this book review explores the mixed messages within the text of his leadership outline.

2. Synopsis

   General Pagonis effectively piques the reader's interest at the beginning of Moving Mountains by immediately describing the Gulf War. He astounds the reader with the sheer size and complexity of the Gulf War logistical effort and describes how the three main phases of the logistics operation-deployment, combat, and redeployment-were planned and executed. By the end of the first chapter, the reader anticipates that General Pagonis will explain how he achieved these monumental tasks.

   General Pagonis takes a detour, however, by presenting his memoirs. Instead of meeting the reader's expectation of how he achieved these great logistical feats, he spends the next 140 pages telling his life story, in the context of what he has learned about leadership and logistics management.

   General Pagonis begins his memoirs by telling of his days delivering newspapers as a boy in Pennsylvania and continues through to his management of the Gulf War redeployment phase nearly forty-five years later. General Pagonis justifies this detour by explaining that to understand his leadership style, the reader must know the source. Throughout the vivid narrative of his life, Army career, and Gulf War experience, General Pagonis orients the reader to his essential lessons in leadership as he learned them.

   General Pagonis then transitions from the narrative to the descriptive and...