Nathaniel Fick is a former Force Recon Marine who wrote a masterful book on Iraq and our forces there entitled One Bullet Away. He and his band of merry marauders served as the model for Evan Wright’s Generation Kill, the Rolling Stones’ version of the Marine Corps.
From his new organization’s website:
Prior to joining CNAS, Mr. Fick served as a Marine Corps infantry officer. He took part in the earliest phases of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2001 and 2002 and led a reconnaissance unit during the invasion of Iraq in 2003. He served in 2007 as a civilian instructor at the Afghanistan Counterinsurgency Academy in Kabul, and in 2008 on the Presidential Transition Team at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
He is the author of the 2005 New York Times bestseller One Bullet Away, recognized as one of the “Best Books of the Year” by The Washington Post and one of the “Best Military Books of the Decade” by The Military Times. The Commanding General of U.S. Marine Corps Forces Central Command made One Bullet Away required reading for officers deploying to Afghanistan and Iraq.
If you have not already read the book, you should. It is great. But this post is not about Mr. Fick. Well, not entirely. It is about teenagers who want to follow in his footsteps and become Force Recon Marines. Like this little Genghis Khan:
Friend has Force Recon fever?
Me and a friend have wanted to join the Marine Corps since middle school. Well I want to be a pilot or someone in logistics and he wants to be in Force Recon. Since he learned about what Force Recon does he’s been doing stupid sh*t. Freshman year of high school he stayed outside during a blizzard and he nearly froze to death. He has climbed down and up numerous cliffs. He’s been known to crawl to school. He was just telling me that he tried swimming from our town to a town about 15 miles from us. He’s got a screw loose and I’m afraid he’s going to end up dying. How do I get a highly motivated individual to calm down and should I tell his recruiter? If I tell his recruiter will he get in any kind of trouble?
Hmm, he should consider swimming the crawl to school. That way he can check off two boxes on his Force Recon bucket list. Swim to school. And crawl to school.