Duty First: West Point and the Making of American Leaders - Hardcover

Ruggero, Ed

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060193174 ISBN 13: 9780060193171

Publisher: Harper, 2001

Synopsis

Duty First is a penetrating account of a year inside one of America's premier schools for leadership-the United States Military Academy at West Point. Ed Ruggero, a former West Point cadet and professor, takes an incisive look at how this elite school builds the "leaders of character" who will command the nation's military.

Ruggero details the struggles of young men and women who will lead the American soldiers of the future. Writing with deep insight and superb narrative skill, he follows their tumultuous lives: the initial, grueling training, the strict student hierarchy and intense classroom work, and the interaction between the lowly first-year plebes and the upper-class cadets who train them. Duty First also shows the role played by the majors, captains, and sergeants, who oversee everything that happens at this unique institution.

By taking a close, critical look at the Academy's standards and traditions, Ruggero examines the changes in West Point's approach to leadership training that have sparked controversy among its alumni. While all West Pointers would agree with one graduate's claim that "steel is forged in fire," many worry that the fire has been allowed to cool too much. Does today's Academy produce leaders with the inner steel to fight and win the nation's wars, or are today's cadets being coddled in the interest of political correctness, retention, and diversity? Above the Hudson River to the hot and humid barracks rooms where the nation's future captains struggle, Ruggero combines objective reporting with the emotional perspective of memoir to take readers on a guided tour through the jarring, overwhelming, inspiring leadership school that is West Point.

The stories in Duty First widely reverberate far beyond West Point, because while the specific goals and methods of developing leaders differ, the fundamental values courage, commitment, selfless sacrifice - are the same for all leaders, from the parents of small children to the CEOs of major corporations.

About this title

About the Author

Ed Ruggero is the author of Combat Jump: The Young Men Who Led the Assault into Fortress Europe, July 1943 and Duty First: A Year in the Life of West Point and the Making of American Leaders. He was an infantry officer in the United States Army for eleven years and is an experienced keynote speaker on leadership development. He lives in Wallingford, Pennsylvania.

Reviews

Novelist Ruggero tries to explain precisely what makes the United States Military Academy, better known as West Point, a breeding ground for future leaders. He should know: not only is Ruggero a graduate, he taught English literature there for several years and has written a novel, The Academy, set at the school. By following a handful of cadets through their first year, Ruggero approaches anecdotally the attributes that set West Point apart and presents a variety of viewpoints on sticky subjects like the demanding honor code. At the outset, Ruggero, who co-authored the army's field manual on leadership, acknowledges that the academy's approach to teaching leadership is experiential rather than scientific. In an early training exercise, first-year cadets are required to enter a building filled with tear gas and remove their masks. According to Ruggero, the exercise is designed to take the cadets outside their "comfort zone," helping them to develop self-confidence and character. While West Point undeniably fosters fierce loyalty in many of its graduates, Ruggero makes clear that the experience is not for everyone. The military life is five parts tedium to one part excitement: "For every hour a soldier spends in the field, he or she will spend two or three hours cleaning and repairing field equipment." The minute attention to details of dress, etiquette and hierarchy may make for good soldiers, but they do so at a cost. At least as portrayed by Ruggero, the cadets come up strikingly short in self-awareness and intellectual curiosity, despite the fact that they are expected to lead others at an early age. But then, that may be the point. In presenting the question of how to develop leaders, Ruggero offers a balanced portrayal of West Point by a true insider that is likely to become required reading for incoming cadets much the way that Scott Turow's One L has for aspiring Harvard law school students.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

A graduate and former professor from West Point, Ruggero returned for the 1998-99 academic year to observe the military academy's inculcation of leadership skills in the cadets. To grumbling from alumni, West Point softened its approach, replacing the informal system that granted seniors, or "firsties," despotic power to abuse and intimidate plebes, with a formal, written one in which the firsties themselves are graded on how they develop the plebes. And grading those firsties are "Tacs" (tactical officers), detailed from the regular army--which is watching them for their general-officer potential. To magnify how these roles of plebe, firstie, and Tac play out, Ruggero follows a single company of cadets (about 150 people), and narrates their fortunes as they fall into the rhythm of the year. Between the opening "Beast Barracks" for the plebes, the annual Army-Navy football game, and the graduation ceremony, Ruggero elicits frank opinions from the members of Alpha Company about the leadership-development system they are in. Refraining from opining about it himself, Ruggero nevertheless delivers a textured, insightful report about the contemporary West Point experience. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Harper
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0060193174
• ISBN 13: 9780060193171
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352