Rating: 
Summary: Poorly written for such an important topic
Review: The book is very dense and poorly written. I expected a clearer narrative from Clancy. The book is repetitive and could be much tighter. Franks complains about being criticized for the tempo of his forces during the war. While he may have been wrongly criticized, it seems to be eating him up and the book reads like a 700 page justification of his decisions. I think it really detracts from what could have been an expert level description of the ground war. I appreciate that Franks is describing the war from his perspective, but I would have preferred less of his emotions and more matter of fact information about how the war progressed and the battles fought. He uses much more ink describing how the criticism of him was incorrect than he does describing his corps elimination of the Iraqi divisions.
Rating: 
Summary: Too long, too myopic, and too complaining!
Review: I was disappointed with this book. I have really enjoyed Clancy's other fact based books, but this one came up short. With Gen Fred Franks (an American Hero, no doubt, and not to be confused with Tommy Franks from a decade later) Tom Clancy wrote this detailled account of 7 Corps actions during the Gulf War in 1991.--The book is very long winded. It just doesn't get into the action, and approaches the story with a patronizingly long professorial on military thought that really amounts to little. He spends half the book describing how the US army got itself into trouble from Vietnam and an overfocus on the Cold War which did not address all the mission areas required. That background is important, but it is too long and too academic. Then he goes on to spend pages and pages and pages describing a 4 day drive across the desert, skipping several details -- such as the Air Campaign which made that possible. Make no mistake, the details are there and the story is interesting, but boy does it take a long time to come out. Also -- I am not belittling the valor of our forces then or now. Exciting as the brief ground campaign was in 1991, it pales beside the recent performance of 3 ID, 1 MEF and our Brit allies in Spring 2003. They went a lot further, with less forces and certainty, at a much more rapid pace. That story deserves a long treatment, and I am looking forward to some good books on it when the time comes. --Into the Storm is also very myopic. Gen Franks perspective is very limited to what his division was doing, and not the entire war. Perhaps without meaning to he neglects the contributions made by the other services and neighboring divisions. Having been thru some battles myself, I know that it is hard to make any sense out of battle. Information is always incomplete, and no one gets the whole picture. Unfortunately, Into the Storm is predictably parochial and blinded to what else is going on. Part of that comes from its focus on justifying the decisions made during the campaign, but of course, without the whole picture, it comes out pretty narrow. --The most distasteful element of the book was it's nagging tendendany to be at times accusatory, self justifying and bitter. Into The Storm does provide a solid, interesting personal story, but there is also a strong tone of self-righteousness and old fashioned CYA mixed in. Schwarzkpof had many complaints about Franks, and Franks is eager to answer up in this book. That's exactly what poisons the simple story of a four day desert drive, vicious and dangerous as it was. This book was pretty obviously written to explain "Why and How" Gen Franks made his decisions. Although that is interesting enough as a study in command and execution during war, the book's tone gets downright whiny. It has "something to prove", and comes up short, especially as I read it last spring and then witnessed the two division sized elements tearing thru Iraq in 2003: a far greater campaign with more risk, less forces, and hopefully more permanent results. Also, compare this book to Every Man A Tiger, Lt Gen Horner's story of the Gulf War also written by Clancy, and you will notice right away the difference. Horner had nothing to prove, but just a grand story to tell of American Heroes (and allies/coalition partners) in battle in the desert in 1991. I am proud that the story has continued, and was not left with the bitter tone that comes from Into The Storm. ------> If you're wondering why I have this perspective, I will say that I am an Airman and believe that maneuver thru the skies and precision engagement -- coupled with all the force and support that airpower brings -- is the key to our victories since WWII. I read this book while I was stationed with the Army Command in Kuwait last Spring just prior to and during our team's rapid defeat of the entire Iraqi army, terrorists, and thugs from assorted countries. I also spent years patrolling the border of Iraq from the air, and am very gratified to see the end of that. My prayers and thoughts go to all our servicemen and women still in Harm's Way.
Rating: 
Summary: No thanks to Schwarzkopf
Review: This book describes General Fred Franks' life and especially his experiences during Desert Storm, the war in 1991 in the Persian Gulf to kick Iraq out of Kuwait.
To really like this book you need to be a bit of a military fanatic. Fred Franks repeats so many times how wonderful it is to be a soldier, and how great the "warrior ethos" is, that you realize that for him the military is practically a religion.
The thing in this book that I found the most interesting are the descriptions of the magnitude of military might that was fielded during Desert Storm.
The American Army VII Corps (commanded by Gen. Franks) included 146,000 soldiers, 50,000 vehicles (incl. 1,600 tanks) and 800 helicopters. Not only are these numbers huge, but the logistics involved are mind-boggling: the soldiers need food and water, and the vehicles and aircraft burned an incredible 3.2 million gallons of fuel each day. When fighting the VII Corps expended 2,500 tons of ammunition every day.
And VII Corps was only part of the military forces involved. There was another Army corps, there were Marine units, there was the Air Force and the Navy, and forces from quite a few other countries. An amazing marshalling of military forces, and all under the command of General Stormin' Norman Schwarzkopf (more about him later).
I found the book interesting, but it does have a lot of problems. It's way too long, mostly due to repetitiveness. With some editing it could have been cut down by at least 30% with no loss of information.
Another problem is that there are no useful maps. There are a lot of small maps, about 1/3 of a page each, but they simply don't show enough detail. Again and again you find the text referring to some town or road or river and they simply aren't on the maps.
Another major problem is the lack of a glossary with definitions for all the military acronyms and abbreviations that are used.
And then we have General Schwarzkopf, who is NOT thanked in the acknowledgements. Gen. Franks is very careful to thank everyone from his parents to his family to all of his subordinates, and then goes on to thank Colin Powell (then Chairman for the Joint Chiefs of Staff), Dick Cheney (then Sec. of Defense) and President George Bush Sr. But not Gen. Schwarzkopf.
It turns out that Gen. Schwarzkopf wrote an autobiography, "It Doesn't Take a Hero", and in that book he criticized Gen. Franks for the way he commanded VII Corps during Desert Storm.
Gen. Franks uses this book to return the favor. I won't go into extensive details (and Gen. Franks keeps his criticism fairly low-key), but Franks basically claims that Schwarzkopf liked having his butt kissed by his subordinates, was prone to throwing temper tantrums, wasn't competent to understand or command armored (tank) operations and made several tactical errors. In particular, not giving VII Corps more operational room to the north, not using the Air Force to prevent the Iraqi Republican Guards from escaping northwards and declaring "victory" a couple of days prematurely were big mistakes. The result was that Washington decreed a ceasefire and a large portion of the Republican Guards avoided destruction.
I actually found this dispute between Franks and Schwarzkopf to be quite interesting, and it's so very human to want to get back at someone who's done you dirt. So whether Franks or Schwarzkopf is right, the dispute does add flavor to Franks' story.
Rennie Petersen
Rating: 
Summary: Great Look at the Ground War
Review: Clancy really did an average job with this book. I have also read the other book in this new series he is putting out "Every Man A Tiger" and I have to say that Into the Storm is a second to it. I think that as this was his first attempt at this type of book, he used it as a learning tool and the second book got better. Then again maybe the co-author was just a better writer. Clancy has teamed up with the General that was in charge of the ground war in the Gulf War. The book is basically three parts, the first section talks about the Generals career in the Army, the Army's development from Viet Nam to the Gulf War and a touch of the politics involved within the different military branches. The second section of the book deals with the build up to the ground war. The final section deals with the ground war both the stand-alone part and as a joint effort with the air war. The author does not give you an action packed, inside the tank type of story. What we do get is the process for building up the forces, developing a plan, working with the other countries and military forces and finally the execution of the plan. I found the discussions of attack plan creation and the relationship between the air and ground element to be the most interesting. Overall this is a well-written and constructed book. It has a lot of value if you are interested in the Gulf War or just how current U.S. battles are planned and fought. A good compliment to this book is "The Commanders" by Woodward; it deals more with the U.S. politics involved in setting up the coalition and the interaction between the main U.S. players.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating as biography, flawed as history
Review: This book should be rated as one of the top three books dealing with OPERATION DESERT STORM. This is General Frederick Franks' story complete with inspiring leadership vignettes from Vietnam, the amputee ward in the (former) Valley Forge Army Hospital, to the pulverized dirt and sand of Southwest Asia. The cover of the book is somewhat misleading as Tom Clancy's name is in giant bold print larger than that of General Franks. From my reading of this fine reference the credits should be reversed with General Franks'name in the large print. Thankfully most of the book is General Franks' story, and a very detailed one at that, with scattered narrative interruptions by Clancy. Having personally served in the US VIIth Corps with the 1st Armored Division during DESERT STORM, General Franks' recounting of the corps' "bigger picture" and the decision process behind them enlightened me more about the drive into Iraq and Kuwait than I ever experienced at the maneuver Brigade level. I am well satisfied with the hard cover copy of this book and would recommend its purchase in hard or soft cover to any leader, military or business, or DESERT STORM historian.
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