In the Company of Soldiers (Atkinson)

Rick Atkinson has written a solid book based on his experience as an embedded reporter with the 101st Airborne Division of the US Army during the Iraq war. As a number of Amazon reviewers pointed out, this isn’t the same kind of book as The March Up (which I’ve also read); Atkinson’s book is mostly about Major General David Petraeus, commander of the 101st. Petraeus comes across as a complicated and nuanced figure, and there’s no question that Atkinson has painted a rich picture of what it’s like to be responsible for 17,000 troops and several billion dollars of equipment in combat. However, ultimately I found the book unfulfilling. There’s little discussion of tactics, and the lowest- ranking person Atkinson seems to have talked to is a major. The grunts who make up the 101st are given short shrift, and that’s too bad. If you want to see Atkinson at his best, read his Pulitzer Prize winner, An Army at Dawn, instead.