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Summary: Absolutely The BEST military book I have yet to read
Review: I cannot add much to the other reviews but as a young LT entering into today's US Army, I was completed amazed at the lessons taught in this book. The author has managed to show the reader two of the leadership styles that exist in today's military, and how each of them worked/didn't work for the characters. A "MUST READ" for any leader of troops!
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Summary: Outstanding description of essential Leadership Qualities
Review: I am excited to read the other recent Reader reviews and find that people are still reading Once An Eagle. Like some of the other readers, I read the book after seeing the TV Mini series. I was young and just beginning my Leadership career. The protagonist Sam Damon is an outstanding role model. He is much like the great Marine 'Chesty' Puller...or my other hero, the Army's 'Stormin' Norman. Now I am 53, and a small town City Manager; I keep the book on the shelf with other leadership guides as a reminder of my roots, and that you can only lead if others trust you enough to go with you. One of the best parts of my life is to have actually met and been led by Leaders who had the qualities of Sam Damon. Col. Bud Taylor, BG Bob Brainard, Col Dave Gustufson, Col. Joe Sergeant, Col. Paul Myron, all of the CalARNG. Great First Sergeants like Fred Flores and all the NCO's who cared enough to train me. City Councilmen like Rex Sturdevant, Jack Terrell and Gary Strack. Managers like Mike Walker. Read ONCE AN EAGLE; you deserve a good role model! Read Chesty Pullers Bio too!
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Summary: Simply a Classic!
Review: This is one of those books that should be read by everyone & proudly displayed on your bookshelf. For those who love military historical novels and those who want to know something about combat & warrior code, this is the standard. A most impressive work.
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Summary: Life changing!
Review: This book inspired me as a adolescent. It, and my father (an enlisted man who gained his commision) inspired me to join the Air Force to serve my country and, hopefully, lead troops. I accomplished both. Unfortunately, the "Courtney Massengales" are winning in the institution, so I'm turning down promotion and getting out. This is the finest novel of the American military and the idealism of young men. It should be required reading for anyone who aspires to leadership.
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Summary: WELL DONE!
Review: This is by far the best book I have read. I remember watching the movie years ago and would love to see it again. Sam Damon personifies all the traits that should be commonplace in todays military but is pushed aside by political agenda. I have my own copy that I encourage my Sailors to read.
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Summary: THE TRUE MEANING AND CONTEXT BEHIND THIS BOOK
Review: "As a teen this book shaped my life, but saddened me as behaving like "Sam Damon" brings you scorn and confrontations with the "Courtney Massengales" of the world. I looked for real life characters who marine Myrer used as a basis for Sam Damon. My conclusion is that Sam Damon is actually marine General Evans F. Carlson who founded the marine Raider Battalions in WWII---he marched with the Chinese route Army, was a tactical genius with fluidity of thought and egalitarean (not snobby) like Myrer's GEN Sam Damon and made an impassioned speech against war after WWII. "Massengale" is the embodiment of the careerist types at the WWII hqmc who opposed a human mc based on small unit excellence in favor of mass battalions using robotics and frontal assaults to create a seperate service bureaucracy now bloated to 174,000. Myrer is really writing against the mindless carnage of the mc butchers who ran the frontal assaults in the north Pacific in WWII who were eager with other men's blood to create the mc seperate service bureaucracy for them to command over like a "Courtney Massengale". This book is timeless for we are in the same quandry today with the military profession run by "lifer-careerists" who as another reviewer wrote, do not love "Soldiering or Soldiers". They simply want to be in charge like Courtney Massengale. These men do not want to put a big gun on a light M113A3 armored vehicle for our Airborne, thus we will have to throw something together like Gen Damon does in the book when he straps a 37mm gun to a jeep to knock out Japanese tanks, in a WWII island fight--- otherwise our men will die. The reasons are selfish--they want a role for heavy armor types that will not make it to the fight in time (too heavy to airdrop in) just like Massengale wants his liberation troops to take the town while Damon and Chrysler have to take the enemy's suicidal banzai attack by themselves. I like the TV mini-series better than the book in that ! Damon calls Massengale "on the carpet" then and there as the real Damon (Carlson) would have done. We could use a General Damon today who would resign in protest and get us the light tanks/AFVs and the Iowa Class Battleships we need for our U.S. Airborne/light divisions. As the book shows, men die from a lack of fire support every time we go to war. The book is awesome in that Damon and Massengale meet one last time for thinly veiled early-Vietnam type meeting with a charismatic enemy leader like "Ho Chi Minh", and Damon is able to stop the war from widening at great personal cost. This is profound since if we had maintained better relations with the Vietnamese leaders its possible we could have tolerated a peaceful socialism with French control diminishing over time than the 2 wars that were fought. I concur with all the superb reviewers that this book is a MUST READ for every American and military Soldier. How do we get this? The armed services should create a set of questions and those that read the book and others from a required reading list would answer them for correspondance course credit. We need to build young "Sam Damons" in our armed forces and I hope we can utilize this finest of books to make it a reality. The book's ending to me says it all--and I have to say it--if you have to choose between being a good Soldier and being a good human being--BE A GOOD HUMAN BEING. This is the message that "Once an Eagle" builds to. This is our moral compass, our call to action today! It is up to each.... generation..... to fight the evil of its day....our time has come!...it is NOW." Airborne! Mike Sparks 1st TSG (A)
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Summary: The leaders who should be but won't
Review: I read this book as a 2LT and kept it with me for the next 23 years. It is a goal that every military officer should strive for. Unhappily, most become the antithesis of Sam Damon once promoted to the higher levels. Should be required reading at the War College.
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Summary: A must read for every soldier-leader.
Review: Put simply, this book (or at least excerpts from it) ought to be on every mandatory reading list of every leadership school of every service in the United States. If it were, leadership instruction would be a matter of saying, "Read 'Once an Eagle' and be prepared to discuss." Request someone help me find a copy of the movie.
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Summary: I felt like I had found an old friend
Review: Once an Eagle sums up the total experience of a soldier. Sam Damon as written by Anton Myerer is perhaps one of the best characters he ever portrayed. The life and death struggle, not only of war but relationships make this book a must to read. I lost my library in a home fire in 1996 and have searched for this book, my old friend, for sometime now. Having found it again on Amazon.com is marvelous. For those of you that have not read "The Last Convertible", it is also an excellent book by Myerer. Capturing the lost innocence of the late 30's and early 40's.
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Summary: Anton Myrer's "Once an Eagle" a must-read for leaders
Review: You've had Total Quality Management. You've read Sun Tzu and Musashi on business as war. You've been to Outward Bound and you've undergone Team Building exercises until you're blue in the face. Now read the novel that has more to say about the qualities a real leader should have than any text written by a management guru--Anton Myrer's classic "Once an Eagle." The book is a youth-to-death story of "Sad" Sam Damon, a midwestern boy who steeps himself in military history and a code of honor that requires him to step forward and take the lead in almost every situation. Myrer has tapped into a simple truth. That's what real leaders do; they lead. While Sam Damon is a military hero, he's no marble monument. Myrer shows us that real world leaders are assailed with doubts, real fears, and insecurities that can lead them to cave in to expediency under extreme pressure. But in Sam Damon, Myrer shows us that true leadership can consist of recognizing your mistakes, swallowing hard, and stepping up to the plate again to do the right thing. Such a strong protagonist clearly needs a strong opponent. Myrer delivers with Courtney Massengale, a supremely brilliant and ruthless adversary whose weakness, as Sam Damon realizes, is that he does not love any man. It is the byplay between these two characters that Myrer uses to telling effect in illustrating how love is a key element in leadership.<b> I know of half a dozen executives who have patterned their management styles on Sam Damon's lessons. They are the best bosses I ever had. This is a book that should be required reading in our service academies, and as part of every MBA program and civil service exam in the country. Fortunately, it's also a wonderful read.
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