One More Bridge to Cross: Lowering the Cost of War

by H. John Poole

Book Overview

Only recently have American military thinkers begun to fully understand the paradoxical, highly deceptive, squad tactics of former adversaries. From the author of The Last Hundred Yards: the NCO's... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0963869531
• ISBN13: 9780963869531
• Release Date: November 2003
• Publisher: Posterity Press (NC)
• Length: 142 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

The Good Soldier

In this another excellent work from John Poole, the author has chosen to examine the moral aspects of good soldiering by focusing on their application on a tactical level (although his suggestions might be equally well applied on the strategic level.) Don't be mistaken, however. This is not simply a theological tract. The author, a Roman Catholic, probably has more first hand knowledge of good solid tactics than any other "expert" going. He knows how to kill another man, another unit, and/or another tank. His interest, however, is in the proper aim of maneuver warfare: winning the war with an eye on what Liddell-Hart called "a better peace." It's been over twenty years since the U.S. military formally outlined their emphasis on maneuver warfare (hastily summed up as "achieving our objective(s)") rather than attrition (again, hastily summed up as "destroying the enemy"), and yet our forces still seem bogged down in no-win attrition style wars. Were they to pay closer to attention to the evaluations of gentlemen such as Poole, they'd have a much easier time winning those "hearts and minds" we're always hearing about. There are, of course, a multitude of religious undertones here, but even the most atheistic amongst us will have to recognize the strategic pragmatism of Poole's suggestions. The bombardment of a city by air may win you some rubble, but it doesn't win you a war. A wake of bodies doesn't make for a victory, and it doesn't lay the groundwork for "peace-keeping." As we've seen, it only encourages resentment and an insurgency. If there's an intruder in your neighbor's house, you seek out and remove the intruder. You don't blow up the building. If your goal is to show an eastern peoples that you've come to remove an indiscriminately violent dictator, you don't use indiscriminate violence.

The Bridge Combatants Are Forced to Cross.

One More Bridge to Cross addresses something that often gets forgotten- the training of our souls and establishing a natural moral compass when engaged in combat will instinctively take over as chaos ensues. Fight or flight instincts take over on the battlefield. If training is not effective and becomes a part of ones character, it's left behind in lieu to what already exists in one's moral fabric. This book is about avoiding killing when the opportunity exists in order to minimize loss of life and limb. It's about applying only the appropriate amount of force in order to meet mission requirements. Before going into combat we train mentally and physically with a quick skim over the morality of war, and the mental, physical and moral costs of war without ever realizing what war actually may entail. So what happens when human beings ignore training of the compass? We have incidences like Abu Ghraib, WWII soldiers say they were only following orders when exterminating Jews, Serbs and Muslims of the Balkans revenge killing each other, Palestinians and Israelis going tit- for-tat, Special Forces Operators being accused of needlessly killing detainees, news reporters concerned about getting stories out without considering their uninformed or biased approaches. All of the above named actions contribute to the continuation of war. Service members who are not mentally prepared for this reality may become susceptible to mental and emotional illnesses i.e. Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. They may feel guilt ridden for something they have actually done correctly, but do not realize that they had taken appropriate measures because faith in themselves and their training were not reinforced. Again, war is the ultimate clash of HUMAN WILLS. The ultimate clash of wills is highly emotional for people on the front lines of a battle fields. Unless one has been in a combat environment, one will never truly understand and will attempt to subjugate the importance of the human in combat vice the machine. People die, friends die, and this causes anger, pain and the desire for revenge. Poole's book stresses the importance of maintaining a moral compass in combat. He is training the subconscious to contend with a reality that some hi-tech supporters of weapon systems do not understand. Killing is killing whether one pushes a button, or the other pushes a trigger. One kills people and calls some collateral damage and perpetuates the fight by providing the enemy a battle cry and information operation tool, the other engages face to face and knows he truly killed a legitimate threat. This is the bridge combatants are forced to cross.

A Book Many Leaders Do Not Want You To Read

If you want to read a military book that many senior defense and defense-related leaders would not want anyone to read and openly discuss, then read this thought-provoking gem from John Poole.This book is a well researched analysis of the American (western) approach to and conduct of war, and its moral, physical, and political consequences. Accurate and powerful historical examples complement this analysis. Poole argues that despite all the claims of American military superiority at all levels, the U.S. military has grown so dependent on technology and massive ammunition expenditures that it has let its individual and small-unit skills and experiences atrophy and be lost.If you believe that the U.S. military is by far the best in the world, then Poole's perspectives will challenge your beliefs. Read what he has to say about our World War II adversaries, think about what he says happened to us in Korea, follow his logic about what happened in Vietnam, remember our approach to and conduct of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, reflect on his discussion about our efforts in Somalia in 1993, and then see if you notice any common trends extending into our operations in Afghanistan. Scary stuff.Fortunately, Poole also gives some common-sense advice to reverse the dangerous course we are following to tactical inferiority. This advice is exactly what many senior defense and defense-related leaders fear the most, for it would shatter the status quo in which they rose to power and have fought so hard to maintain.Poole packs a big and important message into a small book that is as thought-provoking to the American taxpayers as it is to the American fighting men and women.

BLOOD AND SPIRIT--DO NOT WASTE!

John Poole is a man with a mission-to raise the level of skill of American fighting units-and he has made me a disciple. Poole is well known in infantry circles for his thick manual of small unit technique called _The Last Hundred Yards: The NCOs Contribution to Warfare_. I have seen well-thumbed copies lying about in a battalion at Camp Lejeune, so I am not just taking the author's word for it.This book, _One More Bridge to Cross: Lowering the Cost of War_, gives the ethical, religious, psychological, social, and professional military underpinnings of the above-mentioned practical handbook of ground unit technique. Gunny Poole is an original and an inspiration. I call him Gunny Poole in our e-mail and phone conversations, even though he left the Marine Corps for the first time at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. He then re-enlisted as an enlisted man, retiring finally as a Gunnery Sergeant-a role and rank held in reference throughout the Marine Corps.I need to tell you that Gunny Poole is a deeply religious Roman Catholic. The religious dimension of this book is probably its most significant and persuasive aspect. His religious teaching on military matters-which I agree with 100% coming from a different, but non-Catholic Biblical tradition-is that our religious ethics teach that the point of fighting in a just cause is *to win, not to kill*. Not only are the lives of our own service members precious, according to our religious teaching, but so are enemy lives, both civilian and combatant. The irreplaceable key to winning with minimum casualties, both ours and enemy, is SKILL. So small unit skill and small unit leader skill are religious imperatives. In almost any fight, especially one that goes on for a while, skill trumps technology. (See _Joint Forces Quarterly_, Summer, 1999.)The author's other book, _The Last Hundred Yards: The NCOs Contribution to Warfare_, describes the elite-level small unit skills that ANY American unit can attain, if allowed to train properly under NCOs empowered to conduct this training. One More Bridge to Cross gives the maneuver warfare rationale for these practices that engage the intelligence and initiative of the lowest echelons. Poole puts before our eyes a vision of the lowliest infantryman as tactically expert in planning his moves for the next 50 meters as his battalion CO should be for the next 5,000.I could go on and on singing the praises of these two books by John Poole, but far better for you to read and absorb them, than for me to convey the false sense that just by reading my review you get the "gist."Jonathan Shay, M.D., Ph.D. Author of _Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character_ [in print as a Touchstone paperback] and _Odysseus in America_ [forthcoming from Scribner]. Dr. Shay speaks frequently to professional military audiences on cohesion, leadership, and training as the keys to preventing psychological and moral injury in military service.

Mandatory reading!

One More Bridge to Cross is a must read for anyone interested in learning more about serious soldering at its most basic level. John Poole has very accurately broken down old military or for that matter conflict theories down to the level that does make a difference - the individual soldier and the things he fights for. When reading the book I kept nodding my head in consensus and admiration for the exact, precise and yet simple way Mr Poole discusses and tries to teach us common sense. Because that's what it is all about. No-nonsense and common sense. I as a captain in the Swedish Army recognize much of our (Swedish) way of training, leading and using our limited military assets in the Common-Sense Style. My current assignment is as an instructor at the Army Combat School. Therefore I will make this book mandatory reading for the young Swedish Army Cadets that I'm responsible to train in small-unit tactics. I am convinced that in time every military institution will include John Poole's work in their teaching and training, just as well as we learn from Sun-Tzu and Clausewitz. He might even be one of our times great military theorists.