"The Unforgiving Minute: A Soldier's Education" by Craig Mullaney Final Assessment

Several days ago, before I got too sick to do much of anything, I finished Mullaney's top rate memoir. In fact, I skipped an evening of television--a big deal for me--because I couldn't pull myself away from seeing how Mullaney's tour in Afghanistan ended and the rest of his story unfolded.

His chapters on his combat time in-country were very interesting. In his one tour his platoon experienced a wide range of things. From the intensity of close contact with Taliban fighters along the Pakistani border to uncertainty coupled with well-deserved pride of providing security during a humanitarian mission to the boredom of service at Khandahar Air Base Mullaney received a very full picture of our military's endeavor's on the front line of the "Global War on Terror."

In the end and all throughout this book the reader is presented with a very patriotic and thoughtful approach to what it means to serve these United States in uniform. Sadly, I feel the need to put the words patriotic and thoughtful together, because all too often over the last eight years being thoughtful and patriotic have not always been respected. And perhaps as a pastor whose only uniforms have ever been a preaching robe and a high school band uniform perhaps I don't have the right to be thoughtful about my patriotism. But no one should question the right of Craig Mullaney to question our nation's endeavors overseas, especially as a West Point graduate who has seen action in the very lion's den of our nation's foreign policy.

Again, if you haven't already, go out and buy this book or borrow it from me or you local library!