In Response to kego520-------

Lived the life of the book, April 12, 2011
 

By 

Me "kego520" (At home, in California) -  

This review is from: In Iraq they say it's safe Inside the Wire: That's a lie. (Paperback)

COMMENT: 

So, yeah. I pretty much lived the story in this book. I knew Sara Minks, and while I wasn't a huge fan of her, I don't necessarily dislike her. We had no issues whenever we had to deal with each other and so everything in this book is about Soldiers other than myself. That's probably why I'm not a character in the book. And that's a good thing.

By reading the publisher's review, you can get an accurate description of what the book is about. However, and I'm sorry to be a bit against you SFC Minks, but I feel like many things were a bit exagerrated. Now, this isn't to say that what she talks about didn't happen. Was there fraternization? Yes. Were there efforts to cover it up? Yes. Were orders from higher ranking Soldiers undermined by even higher ranking individuals? Yes. Its true. But what Sara Minks fails to talk about is the individuals in the unit who did speak up, females and males alike. I know of some of my sergeants who spoke to the commander to advise him of the issues and were shunned. The commander made many mistakes, and he knew it. Our commander was a good guy, but not the best commander. Our first sergeant was a bad guy, and a bad leader. That's that. Unfortunately, Sara Minks makes almost the entire unit look like scumbags. As a Soldier in this National Guard unit for over 10 years, and as a lower level leader myself, I have seen this unit live its ups and downs.

I say good job to Sara Minks for speaking up about her experiences, but next time give credit to the good Soldiers in the unit. And the good Soldiers make up the majority.

RESPONSE

That's a good point. I do appreciate the review, and just to help clarify. This book is about one experience and one experience only. Yes there were good soldiers - good people in or out of uniform. The entire point of this book is to talk about my experience. You know the old adage - there is always more than one side to a story. I have knowledge of only what I experienced. I can not write about the events that occurred that I was not a part of.
I am writing another book - this one chronicles another experience which sheds light on the good soldiers that are in the National Guard. I am not sure if you have ever used facebook, but there is a former member of the same unit who has shared her first hand knowledge of the 1SG's inner circle. It is worth reading. However I must warn you it goes back quite a ways in her postings. I found it best to scroll through about 12 pages of postings and read it forward.
Clearly this woman was affected by the experience in a very hurtful way. She will never be the same, young woman. Her experience has made her wiser, this is a good thing. (http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/profile.php?id=553408729)
Each person's experience is unique. I personally can only write from my perspective, which is what I did. My intent was to address a problem that has long been ignored. My experience speaks only for me. I acknowledge there were several stellar men and women. What they did or did not do in terms of putting a stop to the event in my book, I will never know. But if it is true that other soldiers' had made the commander aware of the existing situation, and he did nothing, then he lied under oath through his claim that he never knew about the fraternization, pregnancies or affairs. This is the breakdown that I'm talking about. Where does the responsibility lie? Whose job is it to go beyond the chain of command to put a stop to the degradation of human beings? Do we just address it, then ignore it? If a report is made and no action is taken the next step is to get someone involved from outside the chain of command to investigate the claims.