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2 comments about Gunboat Democracy: U.S. Interventions in the Dominican Republic, Grenada, and Panama.

1. "Gunboat Democracy; U.S. Interventions in the Dominican Republic, Grenada and Panama," by Russell Crandall is clear and conclusive evidence that this Davidson College professor is one of the bright shining stars of Latin American studies in the United States. Crandall is a rational voice...backed with precision research and pragmatic volume.
   
   This book is an impressive follow-up to the eye-opening 2002 publication of, "Driven by Drugs; United States Policy toward Colombia." On that note...both books examine history with a strong focus on White House decision-making.
   
   The author's first chapter, "The Evolution of U.S. Interventions and Occupations in Latin America," raises the curtain with careful attention to the American zeitgeist. This chapter is comprehensive and establishes a firm path to understanding U.S. leadership motives. Crandall takes no short-cuts and provides a balanced examination of the U.S. policy of intervention and occupation.
   
   It is comforting to know that there are so many talented academics studying Latin America. However, this man is truly special and demands further public service attention. Crandall is qualified. And obviously will one day be a an excellent choice for U.S. Ambassador in a key Latin American nation or to fill the senior Western Hemisphere decicion-making position in the State Department. Highly recommended.
   
   Bert Ruiz



2. In the U.S. policy arsenal, a series of specialized weapons stand ready to defend democracy, and perhaps of equal importance, to serve Washington's strategic interests abroad. In "Gunboat Democracy; U.S. Interventions in the Dominican Republic, Grenada and Panama" (2006), Professor Russell Crandall, on leave from Davidson College in North Carolina, contextualizes a particular series of U.S. involvements in the Caribbean over the past several decades in order to pinpoint how strategic regional interests have shaped U.S. policy towards the three specific countries under discussion. Crandall's central and most controversial claim is that democracy has been made unquestionably stronger in the Caribbean after the United States intervened with overwhelming military force.
   
   Professor Crandall's prose is easy to read and graciously styled, but is also grossly opinionated and wondrously simplistic. His main objective is to provide objective criteria in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the three radical interventions which become the raw meat of his analysis. The criteria includes whether or not Washington made prudent decisions based on all of the information that was available at the time. Also, Crandall means to weigh in on the consequences of U.S. military intervention in the purported defense of democratic institutions in these countries. Ultimately, and perhaps inevitably, given his highly wrought security/strategy background, and his adept penetration of the Pentagon's bureaucratic corridors, Crandall easily concludes that the three interventions were legitimate.
   
   Regarding Russell Crandall
   
   The PR notes made available by his college spell out Professor Crandall's meteoric progress: first as a member of the Bush National Security Council team, then to Obama's campaign, and now into his current Pentagon service as an advisor. They reveal an ambitious academic who is skilled at working political networks effectively enough to hold respectable positions under both administrations. When it comes to Latin America issues, divergent ideological battle lines between the Republicans and Democrats have never seemed to get in Crandall's way. One can only conclude that his ebullience over the Bush administration's regional policy might have limited his ability to sympathize with Obama's more enlightened approach to Latin America. George W. Bush's Latin America, after all, was the antithesis of Barack Obama's. Given Washington's present initiative to place a string of military bases throughout Colombia, and perhaps elsewhere, for many skeptics the question remains as to whether Professor Crandall can be comfortable with a regional map that isn't laced with U.S. military facilities.
   
   Democracy on the Run
   
   Crandall, always affable, does not state his own personal agenda outright, as much as he clearly strives to brush off critics who disapprove of his support for "democracy promotion" at the barrel of a gun. In light of Washington's multiple failings in its struggle to secure democracy in the wake of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, Crandall seeks to prove what others might term as a tendentious thesis: that U.S. military intervention abroad can be justified if it ostensibly nurtures democratic institutions, defined of course, by Washington's policymakers. Russell Crandall is more than willing to prove that there is a positive correlation between the weight of U.S. military force used in the interventions, and the subsequent strength of the democracy that is later experienced. Even in light of an overwhelming literature which argues that freedom and democracy cannot be imposed by force, Crandall adamantly disagrees, stating that, "Grenada was now [after the U.S. intervention] more free and democratic than at any point in recent memory" (p.161).
   
   What Crandall fails to see is that there is a body of history here that tells a different and somewhat more complex story, and it makes all the difference if one is talking about Maurice Bishop's Grenada, or "General" Hudson Austin's Grenada. Crandall contends that in Panama and the Dominican Republic, the general outcomes were the same, "the taking out of Noriega by the United States ended up being a quick and lasting way for Panama to get rid of its oppressor" (p.200), and "the [Dominican] intervention also has helped promote a modern political system" (p.94). Crandall fails to mention that, in the fullness of time, the `modern political systems' in question would come to be dominated by strongman governments resulting in drug running, corruption, bank fraud, and money laundering - projecting the pretense, rather than the substance of democracy. Ultimately, Crandall might bring himself to argue that the world ought to be grateful that the contemporary history of the Dominican Republic, Panama and Grenada were conceptualized by the National Security Council, and scripted by the Pentagon.
   
   Surprisingly, Crandall acknowledges that the democratic institutions established in the Dominican Republic after U.S. intervention by the Johnson administration were somewhat weaker than in Panama and Grenada. But when asked why, he argues that insufficient U.S. military force had been committed; as if thousands of troops were not enough to handle a disorganized revolutionary force numbered in the hundreds. It remains unclear to the reader from the introduction of "Gunboat Democracy" to its conclusion, why the extent of force used in the interventions became a unifying function of their success.
   
   Saving Latin Americans from Themselves
   
   Underlining the author's belief is an uncompromising America-knows-best attitude, fortified by a robust script in which Latin Americans are seen to be the victims of inevitable and self-inflicted ideological problems, against which they must be immunized. Regarding the intervention in Panama, in which Manuel Noriega was removed from power by U.S. forces, Crandall postulates that, "even if the Panamanian people had removed Noriega themselves, it was more than likely that someone who was far from democratic would have replaced him" (p.200). This process of serial interventions could be described as Crandall's sense of noblesse oblige.
   
   Many of Crandall's formulations are dressed up in a disturbing hip-hip-hooray rhetoric, which must have annoyed at least some of his readers, especially those like myself, who happen to be of another nationality. Throughout much of his study, Crandall seeks to point out that those living in the Caribbean (especially in Grenada), were in dire need of U.S. direct action to protect them against becoming captives of leftist authoritarian actors, but it is here that his evidence truly runs thin. The White House's passion to oust Maurice Bishop's Marxist New Jewel movement from power soon after it took office was based upon an utter myth; that Bishop had commissioned the construction of a military airport on Grenada at the behest of Havana, in order to facilitate the movement of Cuban troops to aid in the revolutionary wars in Africa. Furthermore, President Bush's insistence that General Noriega was a major drug runner and human rights violator was equally inflated. Although Noriega was a somewhat unsavory figure, only a small number of fatalities could truly be ascribed to him. Manuel Noriega was, after all, a former CIA asset, who for years served as a highly appreciated functionary of the Agency.
   
   Even with these facts aside, it is odd that Crandall did not bother to canvas other writings on democracy (for example, Robert Dahl comes to mind) in search of deeper explanations for the advent and endurance of democratic regimes. Because he isolates his work from others who have taken on the task of explaining where, when, and how democracy thrives, Crandall's book comes out rather narrow in its scope, totally predictable in its attitude, and somewhat shallow in its overall analysis of democracy as a process. In effect, he utilizes meager theory to thump a very big drum. Furthermore, despite his fluency in the language, he ignores important Spanish sources that presumably could have broadened and deepened his enterprise.
   
   The Protection of U.S. Citizens: A Pretense for Invasion
   
   Professor Crandall had no problem in swallowing the line that securing the supposed safety of American citizens lent a compelling argument for the execution of the Dominican Republic intervention, but he tortures the "we did it to protect U.S. citizens" apologia well beyond its proper functional range. In such settings, Crandall alludes to the scheming Communist side as the main threat to American life, often with little effort to substantiate his claim with historical evidence buttressed with recent documents and other primary sources. If he had, perhaps he would have acknowledged that the number of U.S. casualties from these interventions, to no one's surprise, was negligible. Occasionally Crandall lets his true beliefs show, stating at one time that, "a better way of viewing the situation is to accept that at least some risk of a Communist takeover existed" (p.37).
   
   In the case of Grenada, Crandall has attempted to refute some of his expositors' critiques, but ultimately refers to the "what if the U.S.A. hadn't intervened" stream of analysis. Crandall does not acknowledge that only a small group unanimously considered Grenada a win for Washington diplomacy. Of equal importance, he fails to remind us that U.S. public opinion had been deceptively manipulated in order for Americans to accept a political ideology which was fraudulent to its core. This includes the arresting of a political process whereby Washington could have targeted "General" Hudson Austin, rather than pretending to avenge the murder of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, who had been slain by the Austin coup. To this end, Crandall never explains why such overwhelming military force was necessary to secure the lives of American citizens, when the threat was if anything, palpably modest.
   
   The cable traffic between the State Department and Pentagon to their agents in the field indicates that the call for U.S. troops to protect U.S. and foreign nationals (who sought refuge at the Embajador Hotel in the Dominican Republic and at St. George's Medical School in Grenada), had been authored in Washington. The calls to intervene were not authored by General Wessin y Wessin, in the name of the Dominican Republic military, or by the responsible officials at St. George's. Unnoted by Crandall, Dr. Geoffrey Bourne, the vice chancellor at St. George's University School of Medicine, insisted at the time that the safety of American medical students was never in doubt, and was only compromised once the U.S. invasion began. Ultimately, Professor Crandall's analysis proves that the world of "what if" is better left untouched by U.S. academics with a strong military tropism.
   
   A Strangled Truth
   
   To be fair, Crandall energetically tries to establish that American lives were truly at stake, but here he is fatally limited in what inside truths he can ultimately muster after relying so heavily on his collection of ideologically-driven White House sources, and little else. As a result, in many respects, he puts himself in an awkward position. By using such skewed evidence to illuminate critical moments in the buildup to the interventions, he has struggled to lump his three little wars together in order to defend the administration-of-the-day's actions. He chose to do this as opposed to proving, with irrefutable evidence, that specific decisions to intervene at each transformative stage were merited. One must humbly chide Professor Crandall for not making use of an entire file of COHA material that was issued at the time, which had useful disclosures about the role of the CIA and State Department in fabricating a case for intervening in Grenada and generating false interpretations over the use of the island's new airport. Perhaps he might have been a more credible analyst had he chosen to consult a broader base of sources and more thoroughly explored critics' claims - which might be inconvenient for him, but still necessary to address.
   
   The Dominican Script
   
   Although there are a number of systemic problems with the conclusions he reaches, the most obvious example is that he skims over the fact that the United States undeniably worked to undermine the sovereignty of the Caribbean nations under his purview. In his assessment, Crandall avoids the concept of respecting sovereignty, and instead zeroes in on what he sees as the high point of the interventions, stating that "while far from perfect, Dominican democracy was unquestionably stronger than it had been before the U.S. intervention" (p.93).
   
   In order to further substantiate his claim, Crandall details subsequent elections in the Dominican Republic, unabashedly stating that future democratic success in the Dominican stemmed from U.S. military intervention: "given the country's tumultuous and violent history, a compelling case can be made that the U.S. intervention prevented an incipient civil war from turning into something much worse" (p.94). What Crandall doesn't stress is that, in fact, democracy was hardly improved; it was, in fact, worsened by the U.S. thunder.
   
   Crandall does not appear to have considered that had the U.S. chosen not to intervene, perhaps the Dominican Republic might have become a more substantive democracy than it is today, instead of the kleptocracy in which its presidential politics has specialized in for years. He also makes the same blanket judgment for Panama and Grenada, stating that if nothing else, at least the rate at which democracy developed in these countries increased as a result of the U.S. interventions. His ultimate thesis: "democracy could also have easily taken much longer to put down deep roots [without U.S. intervention]" (p.227).
   
   In many ways Professor Crandall dusted off a scuffed up thesis that does not provide a fully satisfying description of any of the three instances of Caribbean interventions he has chosen to chronicle. According to his own criteria, he not only seeks to analyze the interventions by submitting the process to academic rigor, but also seems intent on proving, without a hint of embarrassment, that the ends justified the means. In many ways, he may have bitten off more of an ethical argument than he could chew and, in doing so, he impaired some of the more meaningful insights that have been laid out by conservative analysts elsewhere regarding Washington's decision-making process.
   
   Despite this impasse, Crandall's analysis of the Dominican intervention is noteworthy, because of his ability to see things the way President Lyndon B. Johnson did in commissioning the Dominican Intervention of 1965. However, one might argue that framed by Fidel's victory in Cuba, not yet been beleaguered by Vietnam, but knowing that he would not tolerate another "Havana," President Johnson contrived the entire Dominican script. This action relied upon Johnson's ability to justify the landing of tens of thousands of U.S. troops, allegedly to rescue U.S. and foreign nationals who had been urged to take refuge at the Embajador Hotel by local authorities. In other words, Crandall fails to acknowledge that Johnson and his aides raised a Potemkin village to justify the White House's escapades.
   
   Ideology and Intervention: A Disturbing Duo
   
   As a result of his lackluster approach, much of Crandall's professional analysis suffers from a near-fatal illness. It is a shame that Crandall, in stressing the desiderata of the interventions, burdens himself with such an unworthy redemptive task in writing "Gunboat Democracy," when some of his insights into Washington's motivations for military intervention could have made the cut. Perhaps if he had been able to avoid using paternalistic logic to justify the three interventions in question, Crandall might have emerged as a more balanced analyst. The approach he uses in his writing largely mimics the stand taken by Reagan's advisors during the Grenada intervention, embodied in a speech that the then-president made to an audience of 90,000 Grenadians. After having ordered the invasion of their country in the name of defending democracy, Reagan said, "I will never be sorry that I made the decision to help you" (p. 162).
   
   Subjective omissions notwithstanding, Russell Crandall has written a flawed, but provocative book, showing that he feels comfortable in defending U.S. military intervention in the Caribbean in a number of settings. More broadly, he seeks to defend, mirabile dictu, America's right to uphold democratic freedoms around the world. Regrettably, in "Gunboat Democracy," Crandall first codifies and then commits many of the same errors that both Republican and Democrat administrations did at the time that these interventions were transpiring. It may be that one of the clearest reasons to be disappointed with "Gunboat Democracy," is that Crandall, a born again buccaneer, mistakes ideologically-driven and anecdotal prejudices as legitimate grounds for military intervention.
   
   One can only hope that in Crandall's upcoming endeavors he will articulate a stronger, more insightful understanding of Latin America, and rally a sense of common cause with the region's drive for autonomous democracy. The people of the region are capable, eager and willing to defend democracy according to their own goals, definitions and agendas. Looking ahead, it becomes a question of whether or not the Obama administration will permit the region to determine its own direction. The degree to which Washington means to harmonize its own policy with that of the rest of the hemisphere should be determined in short order, not only with friendly ports-of-call like Peru, Costa Rica, and Colombia, but also with less hospitable provenances like sulking Venezuela, and Bolivia.
   
   by COHA Research Associate Shantel Beach

5 comments about Urgent Fury: The Battle for Grenada (Issues in Low Intensity Conflict).

1. As a participant in Operation Urgent Fury, I had alot of questions before and especially after the operation. Maj. Adkin has answered those and a few more.

   For someone with a military background, this book is outstanding in its content and operations descriptions without a lot of fluff. Some sections were a little vague, (Special Operations, understandable).

   Overall the book was informative and detailed but not overly so. I recommand it for anyone who wants to understand the thought process behind this operation and the pitfalls even the Best of the Best face in times of Urgent Fury.




2. This is THE book to learn what happened on Grenada in 1983. This battle overlooked today marked the turning point in the Cold War. This was the first American military victory since the Vietnam War and sent a signal to the Soviets that communist expansion would cease under the Reagen administration. Major Adkin's book covers all of this, and points out the fight centered on the 10,000 foot strategic runway at Point Salines which as proven by the vast quantities of arms captured was the transfer point to all of Latin America for violence.

   The book shows how the New Jewel Movement collapsed due to personal jealousies and assassinations leading to a swift U.S. plan to invade, which while not perfect, was necessary rather than delay in order to secure American medical students held hostage from harm. Reading the details he lays out of the U.S. Army Rangers parachuting in under 500 feet--under Cuban anti-aircraft guns---to seize the Point Salines airfield is exilherating and well wriitten, and busts open the Hollywood myths foisted by movies like "Heartbreak Ridge" that marines did the fighting and rescuing when their assignments to the north were uncontested, and without any Americans to be rescued. Adkin shows how the PRA and Cubans were dug in on the beaches waiting for a water landing when The Rangers, then the 82d Airborne Division came from the sky, catching them by surprise. Follow on operations had the Rangers rescuing U.S. medical students using mc and U.S. Army helicopters and the 82d Airborne Division fighting against stiff resistance before fanning out to secure the southern half of the island.

   The book doesn't flinch however from tactical details and how things could have been done better. He has maps and drawings of where the actions took place that drive his points home, as well as photographs, to include mc helicopters that were shot down, and the leaders and rivals in the New Jewel movement. Readers will enjoy small points like the Ranger officer who used a signal mirrror t! o mark a Cuban recoilless rifle gun in a building for destruction by a TOW missile.

   The point derived from this awesome book is that U.S. forces must be ready to conduct no-notice operations and to be able to come from unexpected directions like parachuting from the AIR as well as conventional sea directions. This book is a must-read for anyone in the military today or who has any interest in modern tactical affairs.

   AIRBORNE!!

   Mike Sparks 1st Tactical Studies Group (A)




3. Adkins brings out the strenghts and weaknesses of our military at that time and shows how this, but for the bravery of the rangers , could have been a catastrophe. One glaring error, on p284 the casualties listed on the calivigny raid are improper.Slater and Lannon are correctly named however the third casualty was not Sebastian Greiner but Philip S. Grenier. I can assure you of this since I am his father. Sure wish I could correct the error or at least contact the Publisher or author. Mr. Jean A. Grenier



4. "We blew them away," a senior White House advisor remarked regarding the overwhelming success of the invasion of Grenada in late 1983. For the first time in history, a democratic nation had crushed a Marxist regime-and did so with few casualties. To the untrained eye, it seemed that the U.S. military had operated flawlessly in defeating the communists in Grenada. However, the British Major Mark Adkin, Commanding Officer of the Caribbean Peace-keeping Force (CPF), contests that theory and counters in his book Urgent Fury that the U.S. armed forces came extremely close to a major political defeat. Adkin asserts that American forces were never in jeopardy of losing the battle for Grenada. However, he believes that the U.S. military command had committed major flaws in the planning and carrying out of Operation Urgent Fury. These leaders narrowly escaped insurmountable American deaths through luck and through the battlefield intuition of lower grade officers.
   Adkin's main assertion is that the invasion of Grenada was not the staunching success that the military and the Reagan Administration heralded. Adkin draws out several major accounts of compromised military objectives and traces all of these back to poor planning on a senior officer's part. From the initial invasion on October 25 to the "all-clear" in December, the military units involved were sent out on poorly planned and uncoordinated missions that nearly cost America numerous casualties. Fortunately the U.S. had on its side overwhelming superiority and availability of American fire support to bail out our forces from near defeat.
   The invasion of Grenada was divided into two major sections. The first was the U.S. Marine landing in the northern division of the island. The second assault was in the southern portion of the island and was composed of elements from the Navy SEALS, U.S. Army Rangers, Delta Force, and the 82nd Airborne-the Army's elite paratroop division.
   It is in the second assault which Adkin details most in the book. This is because of the fact that it was in the southern portion of the island most of the major complications happened. Adkin has a major bias against the special operations units in the southern assault because he is a member of the British elite and the British and American forces tend to have a friendly rivalry. Adkin's main contention against the American elite units is due to the fact that he was the commander of the third assaulting force on Grenada, the British led CPF. Adkin personally witnessed the planning and carrying out of the invasion of Grenada. Therefore, in Urgent Fury he illustrates just how close America came to shipping home hundreds of body bags.
   There are three reoccurring themes in Urgent Fury which show the ineffective leadership of the planners and senior commanders. The first contention the author has is the lack of military intelligence involved in planning the island invasion. The military had not topographical maps of the island and was forced to use outdated British touring maps to plan the invasion. Also, the nature and location of the enemy forces were almost completely unknown to the invading forces. This lack of knowledge resulted in the shooting down of several choppers by Cuban anti-aircraft guns and caused Delta Force to abort two missions. The helicopters simply could not drop the units off in the middle of a firefight.
   The second problem was the lack of a fully integrated, interoperable communications system. Unlike the fighting elements which were organized to conduct operations independent of one another, communications systems were not allowed such freedom. Adkin believes that communications was to have been the glue that would tie together the operation of the four independent United States military service elements. Unfortunately, communications support failed in meeting certain aspects of that mission. It cannot be said that communications capability itself was abundant. The author cites several dilemmas in the shortages of communications, but the most compelling is the account of the SEAL assault upon the Governor-General's mansion in which the units were pinned down against an overwhelming force heavy machine guns. Hovering above the men fighting were two large gunships which they were unable to contact through the radio. They were forced to use a telephone in the mansion to call their commander at Fort Bragg, N.C. to gain radio access to the gunships. Adkin points out that the fact that these units could not communicate one-to-one could have caused more casualties from enemy and friendly fire.
   However, the most shocking and dangerous part of the mission was the fact that the invasion force lacked precise data on the location of the American medical students they were to rescue. Adkin notes that attack planners did not realize that more than a thousand American medical students were spread out over three locations instead of merely at the True Blue campus in the southern tip of the island. When the Rangers counted the students they realized that there were more than four hundred missing. Fortunately for our sake, Adkin asserts, the Marxist forces did not bother with these students. If the enemy had chosen to use the students as human shields, the battle would have been much bloodier on both the military and civilian sides.
   The book raises no real objections to the author validity. Adkin fought in Grenada as a commander and gives first hand account. Furthermore, he also uses primary sources from actual after action reports to support his claims on the fallacies of the senior American command. This book has raised doubts on the quality of leadership involved in the Grenada invasion, but does so logically and with thoroughly grounded contextual evidence. The book challenges our perception as to whether we should believe that superior technology always guarantees battlefield success.
   In Grenada, American forces had a five to one ratio in manpower and an overwhelming firepower advantage over the Marxists and yet there were multiple opportunities for disaster. We just were lucky. Adkin believes that we cannot trust luck to guide us in future conflicts. In war, the commanders need to be aware of the potential cost of their actions. He believes that there is no excuse for unsound decisions as they are placing men's lives at risk. There is no replacement for real military leadership.



5. I've heard numerous times that this is the best book on Operation Urgent Fury, the U.S. led invasion of Grenada. If so, this makes me sad.
   
   As a participant of the operation (I was eating my wife's birthday cake when I received the alert notice to go) I bring an eyewitness perspective to many of the events the author describes. I was a Sergeant assigned as a gunner to a howitzer section with Battery B, 1/320th FA (Airborne), 82nd Airborne Division. We were part of the first battalion task force from the 82nd to deploy to the island.
   
   Most accounts of the battle have been flawed - most unable to even get the order of battle right. Truth is like a fine suit, if one thread comes loose, the entire garment can unravel. Others have either hyped the battle to the point of being a mini-Iwo Jima, or worse, demeaned it to the point of being a bad joke. I believe both points of view are both wrong - and unfair.
   
   So, having heard about Major Adkins' book on the subject, learning he had been there, and how good it was, I approached this work with some anticipation. There were many questions in my mind which have been unanswered, lo this past (has it really been that long?) twenty-four years; I longed for a good book with an overall point of view to make some of the things make sense. After all, I was a witness to these events, but I had a worm's eye view.
   
   And indeed, when I first opened Major Adkin's book I was satisfied. He paints a compelling story of the events leading up to the operation. We were never really briefed on the "why" of why we went, in our briefings. I was aware from our threat briefing that there was unrest on the island, the government had been overthrown, and there was concern for the safety of American students on the island. However, Adkins does an admirable job of filling in the gaps.
   
   I am grateful to Major Adkins for making a clear argument that the bombing in Beirut had little or nothing to do with Reagan's decision to go into Grenada. This has been much brought up by those who would love to tarnish Reagan's legacy as President.
   
   However, I am disturbed when Adkins describes actions in which I was a participant, and I find his description of events don't match my recollections. If I'm going to criticize hs work, it's only fair I back up my criticism with facts so let me bring up some cases in point:
   
   He does an excellent job in describing the confusion surrounding the deployment. In my pocket I had a Xeroxed tourist map of the island (which I now wish I had kept), as there were no military maps available. When I boarded my aircraft as senior man on board I was told we were going to Barbados to link up and organize with the rest of our unit before either jumping or airmobiling in to Grenada. Imagine my surprise when I landed on Grenada in the middle of sniper fire. That was Urgent Fury.
   
   Here is where I begin to part ways with Major Adkin's account of the battle. He describes a house full of snipers overlooking the airport being blasted by Navy A-7 Corsairs. I personally witnessed the destruction of that house within moments of my arrival by one of our howitzers in direct fire.
   
   I also disagree with his account of the rescue of students at the Grand Anse campus. My battery fired the artillery prep for that mission. I am aware of no Naval air or surface gunfire support for that mission. There was a genuine fear of hitting the students or collateral damage, which we did our best to keep at a minimum. This would also explain his swipe at how "slow" we moved. We were under orders to win the hearts and minds of the Grenadian people; you don't do it by blitzing urban areas and wiping out everything in your path. Frustrating for a soldier, but a political necessity.
   
   His assertion we left our aiming circles behind when we deployed is not only untrue, but ludicrous. I don't know where he heard that from. As a gunner I was responsible for "laying" my piece for azimuth of fire. It was Division Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for both battery commanders - and Executive Officers of firing batteries to jump in with an Aiming Circle strapped to their legs if we jumped in. I personally saw our aiming circles on the island and used them to lay my piece. Even if we had left the circles behind we could have done just as good a job using a compass.
   
   He blames the "inaccurate" on Calvigny Point to the lack of aiming circles on the island. How then, did we do such a great job on Grand Anse? If we did miss the target as he says, it was due to bad maps, not negligence on the part of our commanders. Even then, his story of the commander in the chopper railing helplessly because he couldn't correct our fire rings false. We had fire support teams with the infantry calling our fire. The bombardment lasted over 30 minutes! If we had been missing, our FIST teams would have corrected our fire.
   
   I have often wondered if the story of our rounds falling in the sea came from the fact that the 319th FA who were left on the island as part of the occupation force, had to fire several thousand rounds of ammunition into the sea after the battle because the condition they were in rendered them unsafe to transport.
   
   His order of battle lists 2/508th as being part of the 2nd Brigade also leads me to question his veracity elsewhere. The 2/508th was part of the 1st Brigade, and was deployed with a company of one of the battalions of the 504th (I don't recall which battalion, though). To my knowledge they were never part of our brigade, either tactically or administratively.
   
   I agree with Major Adkins the operation was bureaucratic SNAFU at the top. However, he appears to relish every mistake made by the American high command while giving short shrift to the things done right at the bottom. Perhaps I am overly sensitive to criticism after enduring years of it. But one must remember, we hadn't been to war in over ten years; many of the things learned in Vietnam were forgotten in the years of peace between. The military had just come out of at least four years neglect from 1977 -1981, morale had been low, readiness at an all-time low.
   
   As a former commander of the 82nd MG James Lindsay (who I wished had commanded us in Grenada) was fond of saying, "We have eighteen hours to go to war. That's not a lot of time to get smarter, faster, or better - you go with what you got!" Unlike soldiers in most other wars, we didn't have time to learn from our mistakes. We went with what we had. Major Adkins attributes our victory to pure dumb luck. I've never been much of a believer in dumb luck. I discovered one makes his own luck, usually. I think the troopers and marines on that island made ours.
   
   He appears to have an open disdain, even dislike for the troopers of the 82nd. He neglects to mention the two engineers from the 82nd who jumped in with the rangers and were instrumental in clearing the wreckage from the airstrip in a timely manner. It is true, that at first, there was problem keeping the guys in proper uniforms. It was hot, we were, indeed, clothed in uniforms ill-suited for a tropical environment (you go with what you got), as an NCO I insisted that my troops at least keep their helmets and flak vests on and that they not have their M-16A1 any farther than arms' length from them at all times. I believe most NCOs got the guys in line fairly quick. The "magic" helmet, which saved a trooper's life by stopping an AK bullet helped immensely. I never had a problem getting my guys to keep their helmets on after that was passed around.
   
   He does mention the reason the marines were able to move so quickly on the island was the fact they met little or no opposition in the north, while we faced the brunt of the opposition and were moving through an urban environment with strict orders to limit collateral damage and civilian casualties. But we were moving. After Calvigny, the artillery's role was to "lay" on targets to be ready to fire if needed as the infantry would move into a new area and clear it. When the area was declared "safe" we would adjust accordingly to the next area. We did this frequently. Someone was moving.
   
   There is also some discussion as to the sheer numbers of troops sent to the island. I appreciate his explanation of the reason, though I don't remember him mentioning another real possibility that occurred to us on the island- the idea that Castro might have tried to reinforce his Grenadian allies. Remember, at the time we didn't know what the relationship between Castro and the Coard faction was, we were told by the Grenadian people that the Cubans had helped the PRA terrorize the people. I was told this personally by Grenadian citizens who were grateful we came.
   
   When our current leaders are being criticized for not sending enough troops to Iraq, pardon me if I scratch my head in confusion. The Iraq war is being criticized for taking too long and and causing too many casualties, Grenada is ridiculed because it was over too fast and didn't cause many casualties. Where's the logic in that?
   
   His book, written in 1989, criticizes the Army people for wanting to eliminate every pocket of resistance instead of moving rapidly around them and driving on to the main objective. Reading the book in 2007, please excuse me if I find his criticism ironic because our operation in Iraq in 2003 is being criticized for the exact opposite reason: our troops bypassed pockets of resistance allowing them to melt into the landscape and organize a guerilla/terrorist resistance. Perhaps Iraq now proves our commanders on Grenada to be wise? But what do I know? I'm just a cannon cocker.
   
   Also, the book, written and researched in 1989 could not have known the impact Grenada had on our training and doctrine. Glaring shortcomings, particularly in interservice communications and cooperation were shown. These were corrected in the mid to late 80s. My last assignment before being medically retired from the Army was to work in XVIII Airborne Corps G-3, planning and operations section. The US military conducted numerous interservice exercises and operations and worked hard to correct the deficiencies evident in Grenada. I believe Grenada paved the way for later victories in Panama and the Persian Gulf.
   
   Grenada also served notice to our enemies that the U.S. would no longer cower in the shadow of Vietnam and that there would be no more easy victories for the communists. Remember, we were losing the Cold War in 1980. We'd won it by 1989. I believe Grenada and several other smaller, forgotten actions played a part in that victory.
   
   So, having vented my spleen on this book, what is my final judgment? For the factual errors I have noted above, it is to be approached with care. If he was wrong on these things I know about, what other facts did he get wrong?
   
   It is written well, but as stated before, I believe the author has a bias against US special operations troops, this is mentioned by another reviewer, so I was relieved it wasn't just my own sensitivities. Whenever I've dealt with British soldiers, I've come away respecting their professionalism, but more than a little miffed at their condescending attitude toward American soldiers and the American military in general. I find this evident in the book. Major Adkins seems to find it hard to accept the colonials can do anything right. Again, he appears to take great relish in describing the mistakes made by the American high command, while glossing over the things that were done right.
   
   If there was a problem with the SpecOps people in Grenada I don't believe it was with the troops - they (as were we all) were sent in with lousy intelligence and a minimum of planning. Perhaps, considering the circumstances, it was unavoidable. True, there was a lot that went wrong in that operation, but there was also a lot that went right. I was told at Bragg before leaving to expect a six month deployment ala the Dominican Republic. I was there ten days. I believe the book doesn't give enough credit to the guys on the ground who prevented the admitted SNAFU from becoming FUBAR.
   
   It is sad that this is the best account of the battle to come forth thus far.