Without Hesitation: Comments on General Hugh Shelton's Book

I read General Hugh Shelton's book, Without Hesitation: The Odyssey of an American Warrior. It was a great read. (Btw, the other day, I discovered that General Shelton has a Facebook page. I sent him a friend request which he promptly was accepted).

This is a book that my late stepfather, John Edinger, would have enjoyed.  John loved military history.  He would have especially loved reading about a fellow North Carolinian, who graduated from NC State University, who not only served in the military, but rose to become the highest ranking military officer in the United States.

From the book, I learned a lot about the Army -- infantry, special operations, airborne.  I learned that General Shelton loved jumping out of perfectly good airplanes so much that he made more than 250 jumps, even though his very first jump came close to ending in disaster!  His experiences spanned college (ROTC), ranger training, Vietnam, Haiti, Iraq, Afghanistan, and many other places.  Along the way, the general held a range of command positions, culminating in his four years as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

One thing that makes the book so interesting is that General Shelton is not afraid to tell readers what he thought of people along the way, his parents, his teachers, officers under whom he served, even presidents and cabinet secretaries.  Yet at no time is his narrative anything less that 100% professional, straight as an arrow.  I learned a lot by his comparison and contrast of the leadership styles of Secretary of Defense Cohen and his successor, Donald Rumsfeld.

The story includes valuable information about the joint staff and the job of chairman.  It also provides a rich background on the Goldwater-Nichols Act that streamlined the military chain of command and changed the chairman's relationship to the president, making the chairman the "principle military advisor" to the president, the National Security Council, and the secretary of defense.

General Shelton suffered a serious spinal injury not long after retiring.  He faced almost total paralysis for life.  He was fortunate in that he fully recovered, but it was never a certain thing.  In face, he made medical history along the way.  The book, instead of laying that story out all in one chapter, provides little snippets of the drama at the beginnings of each chapter.

The Command Posts blog carries some good exerpts of the book.

You're missing out on an important book if you pass this one up.