A Woman at War

A journalist who accompanied a senior commanding general as he led his troops into battle during Desert Storm gives an insider's view of the heroism and tragedy that she witnessed on the front line

By circumventing the Pentagon's restrictive media-pool system, Moore became the only American reporter to get a sustained close-up view of ground operations throughout the Gulf War. Senior military correspondent for the Washington Post at the time, she had the good fortune to observe the campaign with the cooperation of Lt. Gen. Walter Boomer, commander of the Marine expeditionary force, who made her privy to inner-council deliberations and provided access to his troops in the field. The resulting report is by far the most vivid and informative account to date of the 100-hour ground war. Her respect for Boomer and his Marines is evident. She portrays theater commander Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, however, as a tyrannical blowhard who misled the U.S. public with his press-conference assurances that the Gulf War was perfectly planned, perfectly executed and virtually bloodless. Moore's book contains some of the finest war reporting of the past half-century. She is currently New Delhi bureau chief of the Washington Post.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

An absorbing and unretouched view of the far-from-picture- perfect Gulf War, presented with grit, humor, and exceptional clarity by Washington Post reporter Moore. In contrast to the precisely choreographed rout depicted in early, heavily censored reports, Moore--from her almost front-row seat in the mobile command post of the Marine Corps' chief on-site officer, Lt. Walter E. Boomer--offers a grim and often gripping account of ``a war like every other, fraught with mistakes, miscalculations, and human frailty.'' Despite such innovations as computerized tactical models and satellite communications, this very modern war remained, at ground level, ``messy and dirty and imprecise,'' with massive casualties avoided only through ``pure dumb luck.'' In the best battlefield tradition, the author, a veteran Pentagon correspondent, devotes much of her narrative to well-rounded portraits of the soldiers themselves. Chief among them is a group of remarkably candid, intelligent, and compassionate officers led by Lt. Boomer, a Vietnam vet who ``knew war and abhorred its consequences.'' On the grunt level, there are glimpses of young tankers riding alternating waves of boredom, fear, and anticipation as they hover on the edge of a border minefield, as well as of the gung-ho female troops who had to fight to be sent to the war zone. Deftly mixing fast-paced battlefield scenes with an unsparing analysis of the political and tactical considerations of command decisions, Moore--who came closer to enemy fire than many soldiers- -earns her stripes as a first-rate war correspondent. (Photos--not seen) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

For woman or man, soldier or journalist, war is hell; war is hilarious; war is ironic. Washington Post reporter Moore's story is timeless, and her tales of "storming Kuwait" with Lt. Gen. Walter Boomer, commander of the U.S. Marine forces, and with some of the colonels and privates who served under him are dramatic and all-too-human. If there is a flaw here, it is that the episodes seem almost disconnected and chaotic, like any war viewed from up close. Moore's outrage over the "spin doctors" and "Neanderthals" in Washington who objected to her and other journalists' high-level access and potential compromise of military planning deserves more deliberate study than the angry afterthought at the end of this book. For popular collections.
- John Yurechko, Georgetown Univ., Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.