Reviews

• I read a lot of military memoirs. Here's a well-written book about all the fresh-faced young men and women who will - and now do - lead our modern army, and how they change as they progress through West Point and then go out into the frightening world of modern warfare in "the Ghan" or the "sandbox." Samet, Harvard and Yale educated, knows her literature and she uses it well in trying to produce well-rounded young officers. From Pericles & Plutrarch, Homer, Shakespeare and Malory all the way down to Randall Jarrell and John Irving - she uses them all as tools to make her young charges think, in the classrooms of "the last outpost," as she calls the English Department, which is apparently set somewhat apart from the main campus. "Yet we are, in our remoteness," she notes, "on our best days a place where curiosity and imagination can find refuge." Her methods must work, because Samet keeps in touch with her former students, and their letters are windows into their thoughts. These former cadets are no military automotons. They are "thinkers." I actually read this book last year, and was recently reminded of it while reading Bill Murphy Jr's book, IN A TIME OF WAR, about the USMA Class of 2002. Some of the people in Murphy's book probably once sat in Elizabeth Samet's English classes. Murphy's book will make you weep. Samet's will at times do the same, but it also makes you think, just like her lectures made her students think. As a female and a civilian in a military male-dominated place, Samet has a unique perspective, and one that is worth reading. This book is labeled a memoir, but there is very little about Samet's own life here, aside from a few tantalizing glimpses. That part of the book - the personal side - could have been fleshed out some; I think it might have made the book even better. Nevertheless, this is a very good book. - Tim Bazzett, author of Soldier Boy: At Play in the ASA

• Insightful book with a fresh perspective. I have bought several copies as gifts for friends. Quick and perfect delivery.

• Really thoughtful rumination on teaching future soldiers. Makes you want to either run out and read every piece of literature she wrote of, or go back as a college kid and go to West Point. She describes the cadets and their challenges so compellingly. Her descriptions restore faith in the American military without glossing over the negatives and the contradictions of serving your country. The book also is a wonderful story of the power of literature and of a teacher who loves her students and her discipline.

• Elizabeth Samet is a civilian professor of English at West Point. The increase in the number of civilians teaching there was one of the innovations of Fletcher Lamkin, during his term as the WP dean of the academic board. When I taught there, as a reserve officer, in 1967-9 there was only one civilian instructor in English, a woman who taught the plastic arts. Dr. Samet is a Yale Ph.D. and her (to some, curious) career choice of a position at West Point is one of the many stories which constitute this book. She is able to accomplish several things here. She provides a vivid sense of the WP ethos, along with the `newer' ethos which includes women cadets, civilian professors, majors, minors, and a rich array of electives. She provides sketches and portraits of a number of her students and a number of her military colleagues. She reports on their communications with her as they move on in their careers, to and from war zones and, for some, to civilian life. The book is a mini-memoir and mini-autobiography. Most of all it is a long reflection on the relationship between literature and life, literature and the military, literature and war. What is most impressive about the book is the fact that it is so accessible. Its materials are complex but they are presented in a manner that is instructive, moving and compelling. This is a book for everyone interested in literature, for everyone interested in soldiers and for everyone interested in West Point. I recommend it highly.

• What we now call PTSD was originally treated as a heart malady during the Civil War, when physicians interpreted the symptoms to be linked to cardiovascular disease. The psychosomatic cause would not be identified until many years later, and the soldiers were diagnosed as suffering from “disorderly action of the heart,” referred to during World War I as “soldier’s heart.” Elizabeth D. Samet discusses this and other subjects with West Point as the backdrop. At the time of publication, Ms. Samet had spent seven years teaching literature at the military school, and the book is a collection of well-ordered thoughts about her education of the cadets in her class. At the same time, she shares the education she received from her students and peers. Though the book’s title may have once been the description of an illness, Samet’s “Soldier’s Heart” is much more. The author shares the deepest (and darkest) thoughts of her cadets as well as her own, constantly wrapping it all within the literature of peace and war. Topics are broken down into chapters, and the expected discussions on courage and sacrifice are covered. While I initially expected this to be something on the order of Lt. Col. Dave Grossman’s books (“On Killing” and “On Combat”), early on I found Ms. Samet’s book to be much more personal. How do cadets come to terms with the expectations of the Army when contrasted with their beliefs? Honor and obedience (“…a duty in military culture; war turns it into a sacred duty”) are both discussed at length. While Ms. Samet may lead us in one direction or another, she still allows plenty of room for readers to think their own thoughts and arrive at new conclusions, a hallmark of a successful teacher. The author continually places us in the minds of her plebes. At the end of a lengthy discussion concerning one cadet, Kevin, Ms. Samet writes: “It is one of the great paradoxes of the Hemingway hero, Kevin found, that his cynicism is sustained by heroic fantasies. The appeal of such a sensibility to cadets believing themselves underappreciated by civilians who construe their military service as an uncomplicated desire ‘to kill people’ is understandably potent.” The author skillfully uses the literature from her class to propel her cadets toward deeper thinking, and at the same time, I found myself being educated and realizing there are many authors I need to discover (and maybe a few it wouldn’t hurt to return to read a second time). No matter what you think about the men and women who choose to serve their country as soldiers, this book will open your eyes and give you a new perspective. Five stars.

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