A really interesting look into the making of special force soldiers. The author, Dick Couch, is a former SEAL himself, so he knows what it takes to make our toughest military members. He was, I think, given unprecedented access to Green Beret recruit training, and Couch offers a fine first-person, memoir-like description of all he saw as the recruits arrived at Fort Bragg, NC for what was a grueling training process. After reading Couch’s book, I’m convinced of a few things: 1) that US Army Special Forces soldiers are some of the toughest, smartest, and hardest working people on the planet; 2) that it is not easy to create new SF soldiers – it’s costly, time consuming, and few people have what it takes to be SF soldiers; 3) that we need more of these folks considering the counterinsurgency wars we may be involved in over the next couple of decades, and they are not easy to create (see #2); and 4) that our political leaders should have been much more knowledgeable of these points before opting to invade Iraq. What some people are willing to take on for their country is amazing, and to know that there are Americans who already have it all and yet complain that they need tax cuts is pathetic. Anyway, Couch did a great job and offered a valuable window into the tip of the spear of American efforts to defeat terrorism.