Inside Delta Force: The Story of America's Elite Counterterrorist Unit - Eric Haney

All military memoirs seem to be travelogues of hard battles fought on a harder terrain. There never seems to be a beginning or an end, but an existence of living in the details of a mission. Most of the military language falls on deaf ears with general readers, but fun characters and good ancedotes always seem to be around the corner to keep anyone interested. Eric Haney does this and does it well. The best part of Inside Detla Force is that it digs at the nature of the soldier. Haney begins the book with a prologue of his family history and idea of a warrior. It sets up the rest of the book to be a probe into the character motivations of top soldiers. The common viewpoint is to look at soldiers as those who are unlucky to be in a war not of their creation, but Inside Delta Force is about the top soldiers, career men who had every idea of what they were getting themselves into and had to do things and fight wars they didn't agree with. These men were able to find great pride in their work. The question of "how?" is at the heart of the book. The reader doesn't get an answer, but he does get an idea. It is the sole reason the book is able to produce a portrait of moral complication.