Negative Positive
Title: View from the bottom 5%.....
Review: In the Corps, the saying goes, "5% of your Marines are bad, and they will eat up 90% of your time." As a Marine Leader of 12 years, I can tell you that the first thing one does is develop the ability to spot that five percent in about ten seconds. Reading Swofford's book, he jumped out immediately as one of those less than stellar Marines. The same has been noted by other Marines who have written reviews here. While his writing is clear and colorful, his "problem-child" preoccupations prevent the book from being considered with the classic war memoirs, such as The Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer or Fields of Fire by James Webb. If you have not read much in the way of military memoir, there are many other options. For those who want something more recent than the two excellent books I just mentioned, young Nathaniel Fick's One Bullet Away is highly recommended.
Is the review positive or negative? 