Rating: 
Summary: Two Fisted All-American Action Hero!
Review: In his autobiography "Rogue Warrior", Richard Marcinko delivers a red blooded, two-fisted account of his life as a Navy Seal. He's loud, crude, and in your face right from Page One as he describes his adventures, starting out when he joined the Navy as a teenager, then volunteered for Frogman training, followed by two combat tours in Vietnam, another assignment in Cambodia, all cumulating in his creating the Navy's first dedicated counter-terror commando unit, Seal Team Six. Sure, he's an egotistical, arrogant SOB, but then, as one of the star operators in what is arguably the most elite combat force in the country, if not the world, he has earned that right in spades. Marcinko is a one-man demolition unit, destroying anything that gets in his way, whether it's the Vietcong or pencil pushing dip-dunk staff [people] who resent that he isn't afraid to bend the rules to get what he wants. Giving credit where due, Marcinko writes a great piece. He never leaves us bored, whether it's describing dangerous combat patrols and training exercises or the various efforts he took to win official approval for his unorthodox methods. My only complaint (and the reason this gets 4 stars instead of 5) occurs at the very end. As Marcinko describes it, thanks to a vendetta on the part of the top Navy brass, he was charged, tried, and convicted of several criminal counts. I suspect the truth is not quite so simple. Obviously something fishy happened in the last years of his Navy career, and Marcinko seems rather reluctant to discuss it in detail. This leads me to suspect that he did indeed, after decades of pushing the envelope, finally go too far, and he lacks the honesty to admit it, instead blaming his problems on "The System" for finally getting back at him for all those years of flouting the rules. I mean, let's be honest. The same "System" that Marcinko rails against also allowed him to rise from high school dropout to a full commander, a man entrusted to run the top commando team in the world, a man who was on a first name basis with the Chief of Naval Operations, the top job in the entire US Navy. In short, Marcinko's excuses just don't fly. But, that aside, this book is a slam-bang adventure story, the sort of stuff that guys like Tom Clancy only dream about.
Rating: 
Summary: Good stories... can't STAND the person
Review: I started to read this book because a friend recommended it... and I could hardly get through it because of Marcinko's intensely grating personality. Okay, I can stand the cursing every other sentence and the explicit 'tell-it-like-it-is' storytelling, but I could not get over Marcinko's hyper-macho, over-sized, let's-beat-up-people-for-fun ego! I didn't find him enjoyable as a person or as a writer. And maybe it's just me, but it's hard to identify with a guy who believes: "War was great!" (p. 92) Maybe in action movies, pal.
Rating:
Summary: hooyah!!! to the Warriors!!!
Review: This is one book which can take you off your seat.The fact that his expertise on terrorism did not help others realise the fact that we are very vulnerable to the terrorist acts shows thwe naivity of most of the population.It needs Sept.11 and 3000 people dead to make them even make the slightest move .It disgusts me when I read some of the opinions voiced like what would happen if Americans machinegunned Iranians during Desert One when American lives where in stake.It seems to me that to an average American it would be better to let their compatriots die even if taking hostage of an American Embassy is in itself an act of War.Anyway ,however sad the whole situation is lets give a 5 thumbs up for the best fighting force on the planet.
Rating:
Summary: Read Me, don't be put off by the cover...
Review: This book is totally awesome... For a self promoting autobiography Richard Marcinko has the single best prose style I have ever laid eyes upon. I am sure John Weisman had alot to do with that but ghost writers don't come up with narrative this good. You probably don't know what cursing like a sailor really means but within a hundred pages of this book you sure as hell will. Even when he isn't cursing up a storm Marcinko weaves on hell of a tale that ends with a turn of events more shocking and disappointing than fiction could ever create. As for the book itself, it's very good but drags at times. Marcinko's military career reads like an action movie hero's wet dream. He's the kind of man who could walk into a party where Steven Segal, Bruce Lee, Jean Cladue Van Dam, Arnold, Stallone, Bruce Willis, Chow Yun Fat, and Clint Eastwood were standing around and make them all realize that they were just little boys playing for their parents video camera. Yeah, he's all that and one hell of alot tougher than all the toughest characters they ever portrayed put together as well. You want a dose of his narrative style: "From that day on I hated the vietnameese. A bunch of people who used two sticks to pick up a piece of rice and one stick to carry two buckets of [stuff]" Now that's paraphrazing but you can't fake narrative like that. He's the bukowski of the special forces crowd...
Rating: 
Summary: A man who believes in no excuses; just ...results!
Review: I first read this book back in 1995, and can say it only improves with time. Marcinko reveals tons about why the Navy and the Government both went after him and put him in prison after he was given the assignments of building Seal counterterror team from scratch and testing the security of the Navy and U.S. installations world-wide: he did his job to freaking well.
I found highly enlightening his revelation that he attempted to warn our embassy in Beirut before it was bombed, and had the cookie-cutting, pocket-change jingling, no-load diplo-dink in charge tell him to get lost. And if you have read this and his other fictional Rogue Warrior stories such as Red Cell, you know his opinion of airport security, something that has been emblazoned on the U.S. conscience since Sept. 11, 2001.
If you have read his final chapter in this book, you know Marcinko promised the Navy he would be back, and he would not fail. Well time has proven the truth of that statement.
In today's zero defect, touchie-feelie, 'Gotta get out of here early to work on my stock portfolio' Navy, Marcinko is causing the Annapolis ring-knockers fits because his books are all the rage among...can you believe this?....navy personell. Ha ha ha. Doom on you, Navy.
Strong message follows: buy this book if you want to read about a man who was given more than a few difficult assignments, put his [behind] on the line for this country more than a few times, and stepped on a room full of toes in the process.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding
Review: A great American military story. If one who is ex-military reads it, they will understand the red tape B.S. that must be cut sometimes in order to be the best. It is the sad cold war senior officers that kept Marcinko down who should be blamed for some of the problems in the Middle East and at the aborted rescue attempt in Iran. His kick butt attitude is what we would have needed in Iran. Robert Baer backs up Marcinko's analysis of the Middle East in his book "See No Evil". If Marcinko had his way at Desert One, we would have gotten our hostages back early.
Rating:
Summary: First and best
Review: Here it is, the first and best from the Rogue Warrior. The story of Demo Dick and his rise and fall from grace is a compelling, well told story that everyone should be reading. I bought into the whole Rogue Warrior series and have every one of his books (yes, every one) and this by far is the best because it is the most real (at least most real in the sense of looking at the other books). If you like action, get this one. You want more action, get Red Cell, but then after tha, they all start to look the same........sorry Dickie. I still gave you 5 stars...
Rating:
Summary: Mandatory for all in military
Review: I have read this book several times from front to back and I think it should be mandatory for all in the military or those who are going into the military in the near future, like myself. The war stories are great thrills to read, and the rest of the book gives you great insight into the other aspects of the military, whether you agree with Marcinko's viewpoint or not, and some of the people serving in the military. I give this book 4 stars because while it is a great read, I suspect that Marcinko's experiences and the fog of time might have affected his writing somewhat.
Rating:
Summary: Good Grief!
Review: This book, part of the huge and growing library of "special forces" literature (mostly perused by the Anglo-American couch potato regiment) leaves one wondering firstly at the guts apparently displayed by someone like this, but also wondering how he has escaped trial as a war criminal (like those who dropped bombs on Germany in WW2, probably "because they were on the winning side..."; this man too). Thank God some of the American officers senior to him had the morality not to let him machinegun, as he wanted to, a bus full of Iranian civilians who were unfortunate enough to get in the way as the US special Forces botched yet another operation...This man, for all his courage and guts, is a "loose cannon" in a fairly literal sense. An interesting insight into the ignorant gung-ho redneck mentality, though....
Rating:
Summary: A great read that helped me write my own novel
Review: Rogue Warrior is one of those books that should be required reading for anyone who wants to write about special operations, whether in non-fiction or fiction. Marcinko and Weisman fill this book with enough detail and first-person accounts to turn anyone into a fairly literate specops fan. The book is a fascinating look at what one man can accomplish when he's not afraid of following his heart and his will. Marcinko's accounts of firefights on Ilo Ilo or exercises in Vieques are compelling and a far better read than most anything else on the market. And his battles with Navy bureaucracy are written in just a good detail as combat scenes. Overall, it's a great read, something you should pick up, read, and then read again. I just finished reading it for the seventh time and it never stops getting better. Plus, some of the information in the book helped me craft my own novel, "The Fixer."
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