Book Review - Elite Souls: Portraits of Valor in Iraq and Afghanistan
Elite Souls: Portraits of Valor in Iraq and Afghanistan
Written by: Raymond James Yamond
Naval Institute Press, 2022, 384 pp
Hardcover ISBN: 9781682477137
Reviewed by: Garth Pratten
In many respects Elite Souls: Portraits of Valor in Iraq and Afghanistan is a straightforward book. Raymond James Raymond, a former British diplomat and more recently historian and social scientist, delivers exactly what he promises in the title: five stories of young United States Army officers in action during the most intense period of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan (2007–2010). Aside from the personal courage and dedication to duty exhibited by each officer, they are united by all being graduates of the United States Military Academy (USMA)—popularly known as West Point—and by all being recipients of the Alexander R. Nininger Medal, awarded annually to a recent USMA graduate considered ‘an exemplar of heroic action in battle’.
The stories of junior officers in action are the great strength of this book. Although it documents the experience of just five officers—three infantry platoon leaders and two OH-58 Kiowa Warrior pilots—amidst an army of thousands, each account provides an insight into the intensity and diversity of the combat experience of the United States Army in Iraq and Afghanistan. Having conducted extended interviews with all of his subjects, Raymond is able to place his readers beside Lieutenant Nick Eslinger in a dark Samarra street as he instinctively grabs and returns an insurgent grenade to protect his patrol; in the cockpit of a Kiowa with Lieutenant Bobby Sickler as he chases an insurgent weapons team across the city of Mosul; and in the turret of a Bradley infantry fighting vehicle with Lieutenant Ross Pixler as a 255 kilogram IED explodes beneath it. Raymond’s focus is not just on individual acts of courage. He describes each officer’s approach to his first operational command and, in so doing, provides much food for thought about the challenges facing platoon/troop commanders and how to prepare them for their role.
But Raymond is concerned with more than describing tactical-level leadership. Taking his lead from the 19th century French military theorist Ardant du Picq, he sets out to demonstrate that the type of physical courage demonstrated by his subjects ‘flows from moral courage and strong moral values’ and is thus found among ‘elite souls’. The first half of the book endeavours to trace the development of Raymond’s elite souls through their family life and schooling to their time in the ‘austere beauty’ of West Point.
A self-confessed ‘admirer’ of USMA and a former member of its academic staff, Raymond argues that USMA was central to the creation of his elite souls by building on strong moral foundations established by their families and instilling the ‘classical virtues’: ‘moral and physical courage, self-sacrifice, a deep commitment to duty, personal and professional honour, and selfless service to the nation’. He provides a chapter-length account of USMA’s development that is both organisational and cultural history, introducing the reader to novel terms such as ‘Beast Barracks’, ‘plebes’, ‘cows’, ‘yearlings’ and ‘firsties’, as well as the various scandals, inquiries, reforms, innovations and personalities that have shaped its program. For those with little knowledge of USMA and its ways, it will be insightful reading. Raymond’s intent with this short history is to demonstrate that each of his subjects benefited from a ‘leadership development model honed over several decades’.
Just as he does subsequently for their operational service, Raymond narrates the experience of each of his subjects at USMA. These chapters are heavy on detail regarding each individual’s passage through the four-year academic and military program but are much lighter on reflection and thus do not strongly support his core argument. At times all of Raymond’s subjects struggled at USMA, particularly academically, but it is not always clear why, or how, they managed to recover and prosper. Some common factors in their ultimate success at USMA do emerge, however: trusted friends, respected mentors, and the strength and willingness to persevere. Given Raymond’s earlier Whiggish narrative about the evolution of the USMA program, it is notable that bullying, hazing or intimidation feature in most of his subjects’ West Point recollections in some form. Raymond does note that their experience at USMA was ‘imperfect’ but he is a partisan observer and seems reluctant to delve much further.
Raymond’s operational accounts actually seem to reduce the significance of USMA in developing capable combat leaders, or at the very least demonstrate that it was just one among a web of influences. What is most evident is the role of experienced company and battalion commanders with the knowledge and insight to recognise their responsibility to train and mentor their junior officers and give them the scope to grow into their new commands. Also notable is that several of these mentors were not USMA graduates, calling into question the unique place this book accords that institution. Raymond draws out a narrative of selfless service and moral virtue from the experiences of each of his subjects but there are occasions where this effort seems either laboured or unreflective. He makes much of the idea of the officer as a servant to his soldiers, but a more enlightening discussion would perhaps have resulted if Raymond had engaged his subjects about how they balanced this role against their responsibility to their mission.
One of the more extraordinary incidents Raymond relates involves Lieutenant Pixler absconding from a medical facility after being a victim of two IED detonations in the space of an afternoon and then, without identification, equipment or a weapon, bluffing his way onto an aircraft to return to his unit. Raymond presents this as an example of Pixler’s selfless devotion to his platoon but fails to engage with the complexity of the act. He does not question the deception involved or the misdirection of the helicopter. Pixler was to be evacuated to be tested for potential brain injury and may have been suffering cognitive impairment. In returning to his unit he may have presented a risk by being unable to perform at his full physical or mental capacity. It is not too much of a stretch to see this as a selfish as much as a selfless act.
When addressing post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) towards the end of the book, Raymond pushes his argument, and his expertise, too far. In his interviews he asked each of his subjects if they had suffered from PTSD, to which all replied they had not. Raymond attributes this to their strong moral foundation and to the framing of their mission in moral terms. It is misleading and dangerous to discuss such a multifaceted psychological condition as PTSD in such simple terms. Even within the pages of Elite Souls there is evidence, in the form of references to the suicides of two inspiring and respected combat leaders, to suggest that more complex and sensitive treatment of PTSD is required.
Unfortunately Elite Souls is repetitive and poorly edited, which detracts from its more commendable qualities and may test the patience of some. The book consists of five thematic parts—‘Early Life’, ‘The U.S. Military Academy’, ‘Preparation’, ‘Into Battle’, ‘Epilogue’—with chapters dedicated to the five officers in each. This approach leads to a cookie-cutter feel in many chapters, and those in the second and third parts needlessly repeat much information. Indeed, on multiple occasions whole passages are repeated verbatim, in one instance on the same page. More attention to detail was needed. The otherwise dramatic story of a pair of Kiowas fighting a prolonged low-level engagement to protect an ambushed engineer platoon is marred by reference to the ubiquitous grape huts of Afghanistan’s Arghandab Valley as ‘great putts’. Exasperating to an Australian readership will be a reference to the presence of ‘Australian’ troops in Regional Command North, which should have been a reference to Austrians, and Canadians will be equally frustrated by reference to ‘French’ Leopard tanks in the Arghandab.
Elite Souls is not a systematic study. In form, it is a collection of professional biographies of a tiny sample of United States Army officers of the 9/11 generation, in tone, a homage to USMA. It is difficult, however, to sustain the lofty argument Raymond advances on the basis of the careers of just five individuals, selected by the alumni of USMA as representatives of its values and ethos. But while Elite Souls has its flaws, these neither diminish the stories of military professionalism, service, and courage that it relates nor lessen its value as part of the record of the experience of the United States Army in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
About the Reviewer
Garth Pratten is a member of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University. An historian by training, he has worked for the Australian Army’s Training Command and the Australian War Memorial, and taught in the Department of War Studies at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. Among his research interests are the experience of command and the conduct of military operations.
