Absolutely American: Four Years at West Point

Rating:
Summary: interesting look at West Point
Review: "Absolutely American" is the story of the West Point Military Academy. West Point has a nearly mythological status in American history, and especially in American Military History. It was founded at the orders of George Washington and among its graduates we can count: Ulysses S Grant, Stonewall Jackson, Robert E Lee, Dwight Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur, George Patton, and Norman Schwarzkopf. The purpose of West Point is to take young American civilians and produce fully competent Army officers who are ready to lead men. Author David Lipsky was given unprecedented access to West Point. He could go anywhere, anytime and ask any question of anyone. He stayed at West Point for four years, learning the institution and following the lives of the cadets. "Absolutely American" is the story of those four years and it gives us a look into West Point.

David Lipsky takes us inside West Point for the four years that a cadet will attend. We follow the cadets through induction, basic training (a course called "The Beast"), and through each of their years. We get to have an inside look at the cadets and how they view their future service in the Army, their hopes and why they enrolled at West Point. While we only get to scratch the surface of most cadets, it is a fascinating look at these young men and women who are willing to serve our country as officers in the United States Army. We follow some cadets who are absolutely upstanding soldiers and may very well reach the highest levels of leadership if they make a career out of the Army. We meet a cadet who at first is an underachiever, but over the course of his four years he grows into a leader. We also meet several cadets who are just scraping by and we are simply waiting for them to wash out of West Point.

One thing that I appreciated about this book is that we actually get to feel what the cadets are going through (as much as possible), and we start to care for them and cheer for their successes and hope that they don't mess up or fail. By the end of the book, I felt a pride both for West Point as well as the cadets who are succeeding at becoming excellent officers in the Army. I felt pride in their adherence to honor, duty, service, and loyalty. I felt pride in their patriotism and their own pride in doing the job as well as they possibly can. I am glad that these are the caliber of men and women who will be the officers of today and the leaders of tomorrow.

No prior knowledge of West Point (or even the military) is necessary for enjoyment of this book. I found it both informative as well as entertaining, and I would definitely recommend this book as one to check out.

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Awesome
Review: Absolutely American is the quintessential American feel good book. In the face of a pervasive cynicism in our culture and perhaps a generation's collective amnesia, the characters who grace the book's pages remind us of what has made us great as a people. It's the Herzogs, the Ignacios, the Supkos who have responded to the call to arms...who have accepted the responsibility of preserving our liberty, who have embraced higher ideals - duty, honor, country.

In their West Point and post-West Point experience, the characters display an up-by-the-bootstraps tenacity that is so much a part of our country's heritage. Absolutely American casts the best of our country's young people in the bright light of hope - they are human, they love their country, and they will steward our precious legacy.

Author Lipsky brings to every American the essence of what one of our most cherished institutions means to us today. The book's greatest strength is that it does not indulge us endlessly with U.S. Military Academy history and lore. (Make no mistake; the Academy's ardent supporters among us get our fill.) Rather, the author offers us an amazing glimpse inside the minds and hearts of his subjects - real people with real feelings handling real challenges. Why do they do what they do? What drives them? What are their hopes and dreams?

No sugarcoating here. West Point cadets live in a complex world in which they might trade loyalty for duty, where uneasy bonds are forged in a crucible of unrelenting demands, where a 4-year series of rapid-fire "wake up calls" defines one's coming of age.

We are provided with an insider's view of what amounts to a fascinating social laboratory - young people struggling into immediate responsibility while their peers at civilian colleges and universities are able to grow into theirs perhaps more gradually. It is as much a study in human behavior - under exceedingly rigorous conditions, to be sure - as it is a story of succeeding in adversity.

Lipsky's book, for me, unleashed a torrent of memories of a simpler time in the presence of the Herzogs, the Ignacios, the Supkos. As a West Point graduate, I was able to feel the cadets' struggles so deeply. I was able to recall similar situations with similar outcomes so vividly. I was transported back to a time and place that at once was both magical and terrifying. Because Absolutely American depicts the cadet experience as it really is, very little in the way of gaps are left for the reader's imagination. A welcome surprise, the work is remarkable in its honesty.

Reading Absolutely American renewed in me, as I suspect it has others, a faith in our emerging generations. That the cadets experience distractions today that severely test their mettle was not a surprise to me. In our day, we had our distractions and they were often challenging. Cadets today seem to be much more aware, more real, perhaps even a bit jaded. While they are not infallible, they more often than not seek the moral high ground. They try to do what's right!

Lipsky does a terrific job of lifting the shroud of mystery that envelops West Point. Students who attend what remains a breathtaking stone fortress are not heartless automatons or bloodthirsty warriors. Instead, they are 18, 19, and 20-year old soldier-scholars - half self-conscious, half self-assured. They are trying to make sense of the world as you and I did at that age, albeit through a unique set of filters. As Lipsky points out, irony is nonexistent at the academy. Through their eyes we learn that lesson early.

What sets cadets apart and what makes Absolutely American such a great read is that the academy's character is one free of the disenchantment that characterizes much of our society today. It is a book about hope and promise for shining young lives bursting with potential standing ready to answer the call to service in the proud shadow of their forefathers. Their destiny stands with the Grants, the Pattons, the MacArthurs, the Schwarzkopfs... We need to be reminded that noble ideals embodied in the words duty, honor, country still exist with us today. Absolutely American assures us that the leaders of tomorrow will perpetuate those ideals.

A truly wonderful read!

Rating:
Summary: Rash Review
Review: I am the first in line to read fiction or non-fiction as it relates to West Point. I could not wait to read this book, based upon the reviews I read. In some ways it followed "The Long Gray Line"s format of following a few individual personalities through four (4) years at the USMA. My criticism is that I had a hard time following the story (events). The author seemed to jump around a lot. Also, I got very tired of reading about Cadet Rash's pt test; enough of that, we get it. The Cadet is mediocre and should not be an Army Officer. I also had to reread sentances over and over. The writing just was not on the same level as other books on the subject. There were some paragraphs that either were out of context or just a jumble of words. I recommend it for those who never get enough of the "gray line", but overall I was disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: A Truly Wonderful Book
Review: This is a fabulous book. Lipsky succeeds in humanizing the Army by spotlighting the members of West Point classes 1998 to 2002. While this book is about West Point, it is told by focusing on the stories of individual cadets, and the cadets Lipsky follows through the arc of the story are compelling and fascinating people. You cannot read this book and not come away awed by the strength of their character. I was truly inspired by the young men and women Lipsky describes that choose to test themselves with 4 years at West Point and then service to their country in the military. Honor, valor, strength of character, intelligence...these cadets have them in spades. This is a fascinating portrait of a world most people never learn about, let alone experience. I can't recommend this book enough. And finally, thanks to all members of our armed forces for putting their lives at risk to protect our country.

Rating:
Summary: Could have been so good!!!!
Review: With some decent editing and organizing, this book could have been so good. I really wanted to love it. Instead, I found that it is a cursory set of observations and interviews, a bunch of vignettes with no depth. The development of a story was nonexistent.

Beginning in 1998, Lipsky spent four years at West Point: attending classes; going into barracks and the mess hall; visiting the nearby towns with cadets; and watching all of the training. He followed one class from the day they entered through their graduation. During these years, he wanted to try to find out why so many bright young Americans give up so much to study here and become Army officers. Well, if he found out, he never informed his readers.

In this almost totally anecdotal description of West Point, Lipsky describes a college environment unlike any "regular" college. He writes of the two conflicting value systems faced by these cadets: "huah", an all-purpose word comprising the military value system which emphasizes discipline, honor, duty, loyalty, courage, self-sacrifice, and controlled violence; versus society's value system with its emphasis on freedom, individuality, self-expression, pleasure, and monetary gain.

Lipsky is there when "The Changes" are instituted, altering the rules, traditions, and the deprivation that had once seemed unchangeable. "The Changes" allowed phones, TV, and music in the cadets' rooms, and brought about the end of hazing, among other things. It was implied at the end of the book that some of these privileges might be changed in the future.

One contradiction I noticed, which the author does not address, is that although it is widely accepted that a leader must be an independent thinker, this is not encouraged at West Point (nor at any of the military academies, for that matter). The message instead seems to be: be independent, lose your career.

I think that Lipsky was so enamored of West Point that he found it difficult to perform any critical analysis of the weakness of the system. Although he does disclose some of the Academy's weaknesses, he does not try to find out why they exist nor how they could be changed or improved upon. He seemed unable to stand back and look at the place with objectivity.

This book was full of fascinating information, but could have been much more compelling had it been better written. I also think a glossary would have been a helpful addition because of all the military terms and acronyms that were used.

This was worth reading because it is about a fascinating place, as are all of our military academies, each in its own way. I am sure that equally interesting books could be written about each one. I just hope that authors of any future books which might be written about our military academies make an attempt to write more deeply, develop an organized format, and make an honest assessment of the institution.