I haven't read a good non-fiction book for a while now. Recent reads have been more misses than hits. I guess good means thought-provoking and inspiring. Maybe not life-changing but at least makes me want to change something. Joker One came along after I read an interesting article that had a one-liner about the book. The article was exploring the factors behind accurate split-second judgements made by humans under high pressure environments and the US military forces were raised as interesting study material. Joker One however wasn't really about making accurate split-second decisions although there were some moments like that. It's a true life account of a Marine platoon's 7-months deployment to Ramadi, capital of Iraq's volatile Anbar province. The author is a Princeton and Harvard Business School grad who enrolled in the US Marine Corps and was assigned together with his 40-man platoon to battle the insurgents and protect Iraqi civilians in the Iraq war in 2004. It's a moving story about leadership, self-sacrifice, mental toughness, and professionalism...
Leadership not just from Donovan Campbell, the author, but from all quarters of the platoon. Everyone can lead in his small way or another whether or not the formal authority has been accorded to him. Leading is about assuming responsibility for whatever goes wrong but attributing the credit to your followers when success comes. It's also about doing it all with your tribe, seeing what they see and feeling what they feel. Textbook leadership says it all but when it comes down literally to a situation of life and death, nothing comes closer or more real. This is when Self-sacrifice means laying down one's life for what you believe to be worthwhile, even when that belief is half-baked and foggy at best, or because your team needs it. It's about taking on more than you can take on when the going gets tough for the people around you. Mental toughness is about how you continue to push yourself to go on, to act in the best way you possibly can even when the situation seems hopeless and you are engulfed in despair. It's about taking it the best way you can. Professionalism is about being able to sieve out the critical from the irrelevant, putting aside yourself including your feelings, your interests and focusing on what needs to be done and then getting it done, all for the larger good and the larger objective. It's about focus and discipline so that you can do this day in, day out consistently. Very very inspiring.
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