Center for a New American Security

Murphy's prose does not dazzle, nor should it. Drawing attention to one's own writing with a story this powerful would be the worst kind of vanity. There is also no need to worry that Murphy's book will contribute to the public romanticism of our military that has grown in inverse proportion to the percentage of Americans actually serving in uniform. War, as it is experienced by the officers Murphy profiles, is horrific. Soldiers kill and see friends killed and maimed for 12 months and then return to the United States to try to start families before they are called back to combat a year later.

A former Army officer (though not a West Point graduate), Murphy can seem a little cynical about the Bush administration, which should not surprise us; he began his book while serving as Bob Woodward's research assistant on State of Denial. Still, Murphy gamely highlights both President Bush's charming playfulness (he agreed to chest-butt a cadet at graduation, telling him to "bring it") as well as his inability to communicate meaningfully with the horribly wounded soldiers who return from Iraq to Walter Reed. ("Well, it looks like you lost a leg," the president told one soldier. "But you've still got another one. Hopefully you'll keep that one and things will get better.")

Presidents and their advisers don't personally fight wars, though, and this book isn't about them. At the ground level, wars are fought by painfully young men and women -- and by the junior officers who lead them. In a Time of War movingly profiles some of those officers, and as combat veterans grow more rare in American society, books like Murphy's become more important.