Mr. Robinson, Mr. De Lee, and Mr. Carrick



First of all, thank you very much for using my very informal book review of Thomas Ricks' Fiasco for this book, Ethics Education in the Military. I am the Amazon reviewer referred to as "M Vigue". Actually, my name is William Vigue, and I was a Sergeant attached to the 4th Infantry Unit in 2003 and 2004 in Iraq. I have not read your entire book, but read the online excerpt on Colonel Sassaman and your belief that he represented failures in military ethics during the initial Iraq military campaign. While I am neither a military expert, nor ethics expert...my commentary on the Ricks' book (Fiasco) was that he was too quick to blame and make a scapegoat of Colonel Sassaman without really getting a solid background on the complexities of the Area of Operation for the 4th Infantry in 2003-2004. I had read Mr. Ricks' book - Making the Corps, and had admired the author's stance on how the post Vietnam and pre 9/11 military had created an exceptional volunteer force that was made up of poor and lower middle class young men and women in America. I also admired Ricks' contention that many of America's elites of the post WW2/Korea generation had failed to serve, and some had disdain for America's volunteer military in an increasingly dangerous, volatile, and complex pre-9/11 and post Bosnia/Haiti world. Looking back at Making the Corps, I felt that he predicted tensions between a civilian led department of defense that had leaders who hadn't served in combat or any military service for that matter using the fragile all volunteer military inappropriately and as an ultimately disposable tool if need be. Ricks' Making the Corps acknowledged that pre-9/11 American society would be unable to sacrifice to fight necessary and larger scale wars in the future. I think that his observation was dead on and admired his portrayal of the military and the Marine Corps of the time. His book Fiasco surprised me, because I believe that Colonel Nate Sassaman was cut from the same cloth as men that he admired in Making the Corps like future VA Senator James Webb. He commends Webb for making difficult and upcompromising leadership decisions in Vietnam, and heaps praise on Webb's fictional but based on true experiences Fields of Fire.

I do commend your link of Colonel Sassaman to the US Army's "Warrior Ethos". I firmly agree that he was the living, breathing, real deal essence of what the Warrior Ethos was and is for the US Army. Instead of simply echoing Thomas Ricks assumptions about Sassaman. I never saw nor heard of Thomas Ricks even being in theatre during 2003-2004, much less the 4th Infantry's Area of Operation. I wish that Sassaman would have been judged more objectively on your part. I believe the failures in Iraq of that first year (OIF-1) began with the civilian leadership at the top of the DOD and especially at the department of state and their failures with the CPA in Baghdad. It is my opinion that Colonel Sassaman did not set out to become the "warrior king'' as the New York Times and Mr. Filkins would have you think. The 4th Infantry Division was undermanned and undertrained in very complex situational environment and constantly lacked support on from self serving higher military authorities, ie; Colonel Rudesheim, who was Sassaman's superior officer that rarely left the air conditioned confines of Saddam's Tikrit Palaces, and other commanders like Ricardo Sanchez in the Green Zone. No civilian DoD leadership dared venture trips to make suggestions on the ground, and for the first six months in that AO, all we did was continue a holding pattern while we waited for directives on what to do. All the while, the insurgency began to grow and civilians wondered how the powerful American military machine, which ran through their nation in just three weeks did not have a plan once the Baath Party fell. As more American soldiers died and no major assistance or form of help from the leadership at the very top. Colonel Sassaman and his officers had no choice but to fall back on the Warrior Ethos and its code of taking care of ones own soldiers. Very few high ranking officers of the post Vietnam Army were willing to risk their careers to do such a thing, especially without a clear plan for this war's post-Saddam Iraq objectives. However, Colonel Sassaman realized the most important thing was getting many of his men back home as could be possible, while trying to help the Iraqis that did not want to the cruelty of Saddam's regime. Ask the Iraqi civilians in predominately Shia city of Balad of their opinion of Colonel Sassaman, and you realize he would have been elected mayor for the way he protected them from the violent Sunni enclaves outside of their city. Until the civilian planners and "perfumed princes"(as the late great David Hackworth might say), the officers that never left Central Command in Qatar, or the Green Zone in Baghdad, or the palaces of Tikrit came up with a clear and attainable plan, Sassaman made the best choices that an impossible situation could provide. It is easy in hindsight to criticize him in War Colleges and Intellectual Ivy towers, without the complexity and ever changing dynamic of 21st century war on the ground. Going back to the "Warrior Ethos" was the right thing to do, not the wrong course of action.



Thank you



fmr Sgt. William Vigue

411 Civil Affairs attached to 3rd Brigade of 4th Infantry - Oct 2003 to March 2004