Book Review
Red Platoon
A True Story of American Valor
Reviewed by Major Josiah T. Griffin
There’s so much human energy involved—so much courage, so much honor,
so much blood—you could easily go a year here without questioning
whether any of this needs to be happening in the first place. Nothing
could convince this many people to work this hard at something that
wasn’t necessary—right?1
Red Platoon2
is a firsthand narrative of the 2009 battle for Combat Outpost (COP)
Keating3 in Nuristan, Afghanistan.Medal of Honor recipient Clinton Romesha (pronounced Ro-ME-Shay) authored Red Platoon less as a personal memoir and more as a minute-by-minute chronology of the combat action in his unit’s struggle for survival against a numerically superior Taliban force on 3 October 2009.
In light of events in Afghanistan in late 2021, Red Platoon is just as relevant now as it ever has been. In addition to being a story of gritty combat action, Red Platoon is a story of “ordinary men put to an extraordinary test.”4 Through this work, Romesha attempts to shift attention and focus from his own actions on 3 October to the collective efforts of the entire team; in this endeavor he is largely successful, and he presents a gripping narrative in the process.
From beginning to end, Red Platoon is a book about teamwork—the kind of literary work that one might expect from a Medal of Honor recipient.5 But Romesha very publicly stated his views on having been singled out and labeled a hero when he received the Medal of Honor in 2013.6 During the ceremony, President Obama stated, “when I called Clint to tell him he would receive this medal, he said he was honored but he also said ‘it wasn’t just me out there, it was a team effort.’ So today, we also honor this American team, including those who made the ultimate sacrifice.”7 With that context, it is unsurprising that Romesha, far from casting himself as a main character, goes to great lengths not to paint himself as the central hero and not to bias the narrative.8
He makes frequent use of words like
we, us, and ours, and only rarely uses the vertical pronoun I.9
He also gives great deference and credit to his leaders, going so far as
to state that if not for First Lieutenant Kyle Bundermann’s leadership,
the COP would have certainly been overrun.10
He pays homage to his comrades by telling their individual stories from
ground level, based on his first-person eyewitness perspective and
supported by his interviews with other primary sources after the
action.11
Nonetheless, the editorial comments and personal stories that are in the text seem completely forgivable, because there is no hint of any self-aggrandizement in them. For example, in what might be considered heroic fashion, Romesha announced during the battle that he was going to take the COP back, prior to launching the counterassault that repelled the Taliban.12 The way he recounts this event leaves the impression that this is exactly what happened at the time, rather than a narrative created after the action to bolster his combat bona fides.13
While Red Platoon leaves a reader believing that Romesha might not have written any books, much less this book, if it weren’t for the horrific events at COP Keating, the book is well-crafted and far from amateur. Though Romesha is an unlikely author, he builds the cast of characters like it’s a fiction novel, briefly describing upfront each of the several key players that he later references as the battle unfolds. Even so, a careful reader will appreciate the convenience of prominent individual pictures spread throughout the text, particularly in the first two chapters, which facilitates easy reference. Readers of the print edition will also be pleased to have a well-drafted map of the COP located in both the front and back inside covers. These resources help the reader build a mental picture of the action, and a close reading of the narrative almost demands frequent reference to the map.
Lessons for Army Leaders
Most military readers will have at least an idea of the outcome, even if not all of the details of this story, because of the reporting that accompanied Romesha’s receipt of the Medal of Honor, along with the high level Army Regulation (AR) 15-6 investigation14 that followed the battle. Yet, the story is still captivating, if not downright heartbreaking. Red Platoon should leave a military leader with timeless questions about tactics and leadership. Is it ever acceptable to sacrifice security for mission accomplishment? If so, under what circumstances? To what extent are tactical failures caused by strategic ones? What is the proper balance between specified and implied tasks at lower organizational levels? What exactly does a leader owe their subordinates?
Above all else, the book highlights the effects of decisions made at the highest echelons on ground forces, though it makes no attempt to answer any weighty strategic questions. Romesha discusses the unit’s mission only in passing and admits that they “didn’t spend a lot of time and energy thinking about the bigger picture,”15
presumably including the strategic value of the COP itself.16
That is not to say that he didn’t realize COP Keating’s shortcomings,
only that he was focused on immediate tasks as an enlisted leader in “a
poorly placed outpost surrounded by an enemy bent on killing us.”17
In fact, the AR 15-6 investigation essentially found that “by mid-2009
there was no tactical or strategic value to holding the ground occupied
by COP Keating.”18 Red Platoon makes clear that only with hindsight was Romesha to realize that his commander was “balancing directives from his superiors that we didn’t even know about—directives that included orders to avoid devoting too many resources to an outpost that was slated to be dismantled.”19
This elicits a few difficult leadership questions: To what extent does a
leader inform subordinates of higher constraints, outside of their
control? How does a leader determine acceptable levels of risk for eager
subordinates, when the subordinates lack the information held by the
leader? Again, the book doesn’t attempt to answer these questions, but
they’re both essentially rhetorical anyway, and dependent on the unique
facts of a given situation.
By touching obliquely on these challenges, the book leaves space for the
reader to ponder these issues and think through best practices;
Red Platoon is not a leadership how-to manual.
Red Platoon has a raw, readable quality to it. The book is accessible, even for non-military readers, because Romesha refrains from jargon and explains acronyms when using them is unavoidable. To the book’s credit, Red Platoon does not stray into political commentary, nor does Romesha overly opine on actions above the tactical level.
Comparison to The Outpost
Red Platoonhas a raw, readable quality to it. The book is accessible, even for non-military readers, because Romesha refrains from jargon and explains acronyms when using them is unavoidable.20 To the book’s credit, Red Platoon does not stray into political commentary, nor does Romesha overly opine on actions above the tactical level. This was a wise decision. By sticking primarily to his first-person observations and those of his platoon mates,21 Romesha fills a void in the extensive reporting and volumes of literature that have emerged about U.S. involvement in Afghanistan post-9/11. There is also an honest, unvarnished quality to Red Platoon that is sometimes lacking in non-fiction works from career journalists.22 Romesha writes like an infantryman—direct and to the point.
For a description of the events at COP Keating on 3 October 2009, the primary alternative to Red Platoon is The Outpost by Jake Tapper.23 Tapper’s work presents a comprehensive overview of U.S. military involvement in Nuristan, including the establishment of COP Keating in 2006 and the efforts of units that manned the outpost until it was abandoned in 2009.24 As such, a key difference between the works is their depth and breadth of coverage. Though Red Platoon provides some background on the COP and the region, eighteen of twenty-four chapters are devoted to the action on 3 October 2009.
Unlike The Outpost, which somewhat jarringly jumps from the candid personal emails of specific Soldiers at COP Keating, to the strategic concerns of the Pentagon and the White House, to the operational issues tackled at the squadron level,25 Romesha generally keeps his narrative at ground level. In fact, Red Platoon remains almost totally silent about the political class and the international circumstances that lead to Black Knight Troop’s placement at Keating and their involvement in the larger conflict.26
This is a great credit to the author. While the inclusion of this
information serves to build a more complete overall picture in a book
with the scope of The Outpost, such matters would have crowded out the selected themes of selfless-service and commitment to duty that Red Platoon illuminates so well. The Outpost spends just 88 of over 600 pages describing the actions of 3 October 2009,27 while nearly all of Red Platoon (minus a few introductory chapters) is focused on that 24 hour period. If The Outpost is the forest, Red Platoon is a single tree.
This narrow focus makes for a tidier narrative of the events of 3 October, but may leave some readers with questions that the book makes no attempt to answer. For example, if COP Keating is as indefensible as Red Platoon describes, a reader may be left wondering about the circumstances and decisions that led to its creation: Who put it there? Why did they put it there? What objectives did the placement serve? The Outpost thoroughly covers possible answers to these questions, and Red Platoon makes no effort to corroborate or contradict them. This narrower focus is a strength of the book rather than a weakness; Red Platoon does not bite off more than it can chew. Romesha describes his own position as that of “a tiny cog nestled deep inside the American war machine,” and his book is a Soldier’s narrative, as witnessed from the literal trenches.28
A final comparative difference is that Tapper devotes a chapter to the aftermath of the battle, subsequent investigation, and how this precipitated a change in U.S. strategy, while Romesha reserves only a few paragraphs for the investigation and aftermath of the battle. That is probably for the best. The first page of Red Platoon is dedicated to Romesha’s fallen comrades, their families, and his fellow Soldiers; he’s explicitly not writing for military leadership or the literary elite,29 while the objectives of The Outpost are noticeably more extensive.30 Acknowledging these key differences, ranking the two books against each other is a fruitless endeavor. They serve different purposes, and each does so objectively well.
The Outpostreceived high praise from all quarters, including from the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, who presented Tapper with an award for Excellence in Journalism in 2014.31 In 2013, Tapper’s colleague David Westin wrote that “the time and effort—the reporting—Tapper invested made it possible for him to take . . . Staff Sergeant [Romesha] through the events of that day in a way no one else could have done.”32 That was probably true in 2013, but does it remain true in 2016? Why, after the dust is finally beginning to settle, did Romesha decide now to speak with his own voice? After all, in addition to featuring prominently in Tapper’s book, Romesha was the subject of a feature-length CNN documentary also reported by Tapper titled An American Hero: The Uncommon Valor of Clint Romesha.33 Both books and the documentary piece all have similar subtitles, which begs the question of whether Romesha was attempting to make a statement in naming his work. And if so, what is he trying to say? Rather than fixating on his own Uncommon Valor or describing an Untold Story of American Valor, Romesha chooses to narrate a “True” Story of American Valor. One could argue that this subtitle implies disagreement with Tapper’s characterization of the battle in The Outpost, if not some degree of open hostility to the narrative itself. Between disagreement and hostility, it is much more likely to be the former than the later. Romesha offers this satisfying response near the end of Red Platoon:
Tapper’s research was conducted with painstaking care. But the one thing that he could not do was to produce a chronicle of what unfolded during the final battle—an hour-by-hour account of the actions of the living, as well as roll call of the dead—in the words of someone who was there at the time and who participated directly in the fight. That is a thing that could come only from one of our own. And although I’m often described as a man of few words, this description is a thing whose importance and urgency has only seemed to grow with the passage of time.34
It is almost as if Romesha is again saying “we’re taking COP Keating back” or, to put it more directly: “now that others have put the story out there, please allow me to correct the record.” If so, what corrections to the record are necessary? After all, the narrative descriptions of the battle in each book are substantially similar, and Tapper interviewed Romesha extensively for his book and CNN documentary.35 But, The Outpost makes at least one thing absolutely clear: Romesha, and the other Soldiers who manned COP Keating over the years, are heroes.36
In opposition, Red Platoon makes one thing equally clear: Romesha is not comfortable with the title of hero being applied to anyone, perhaps especially himself, who made it out of battle alive. To him, true heroes are the ones who didn’t come home. On this note, Romesha offers a further hint at his motivations for writing this story near the end of Red Platoon, and he makes clear that doing so was a conscious decision and not mere coincidence:
Although I entered this project with some reluctance and hesitation, my sense of conviction burgeoned with each passing month. Eventually I came to believe that telling this story—our story—was the only way to properly honor what we had done. Odd as it may sound, I also came to believe that this might enable me to fulfill the final part of my duty to those of my comrades from Keating who did not survive. It was the only way for me to bring them home.37
Romesha chose to honor his comrades, both living and gone, by telling their story from the inside. In that respect, he did what no one else had yet done, or maybe even could do.
Conclusion
It is ironic that the same humility which prompted Romesha to push the credit off of himself and onto others is what propelled him back into the spotlight by compelling the creation of this book in their honor. Although a reluctant spokesman for his fallen comrades, he is an indispensable one. Red Platoon fills unoccupied space in writings about the War on Terror and is primed to become a standard work on military service reading lists for the foreseeable future. The sudden conclusion of the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan in 2021 also elevates Red Platoon to the level of mandatory reading for anyone seeking to understand and process these current events in context. TAL
MAJ Griffin is an associate professor in and vice chair of the Administrative and Civil Law Department at The Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Notes
1. Sebastian Junger, War 146 (2010).
2. Clinton Romesha, Red Platoon: A True Story of American Valor (2016).
3. Also known as the Battle of Kamdesh. Carole Glines, MOH Recipient Recalls Unit Taking Back Outpost in Afghanistan, Military.com (Jun. 25, 2016), http://www.military.com/daily-news/2016/06/25/moh-recipient-recalls-unit-taking-back-embattled-outpost.html.
4. Romesha, supra note 2, at 13.
5. Id. (“What follows is not the story of one man, but an entire platoon.”). Romesha also describes his high regard for the majority of his platoon mates, and characterizes the platoon as “cohesive and capable enough to qualify as stacked.” Id. at 49–50.
6. TPC News, Romesha: MOH for Eight Soldiers “Who Didn’t Make It,” Def. Video Imagery Distrib. System (Feb. 12, 2013),
https://www.dvidshub.net/video/281569/romesha-moh-eight-soldiers-who-didnt-make
(“This award is for the eight that didn’t make it, and for the rest of
the team that fought valiantly and magnificently that day.”).
7. Medal of Honor Ceremony, Def. Video Imagery Distrib. System (Feb. 12, 2013),
https://www.dvidshub.net/video/281576/medal-honor-ceremony.
8. Romesha, supra note 2, at 13 (“What follows is not the story of one man, but of an entire platoon.”) See also id. at 369 (“True heroes, the men whose spirit the medal [of honor] embodies—don’t ever come home. By that definition, I’m not a true hero. Instead, I’m a custodian and a caretaker.”). As further evidence for this level of selflessness, Romesha and fellow Medal of Honor recipient Florent Groberg donated their original medals to the 4th Infantry Division in 2017. Master Sergeant Casey Nelsen, Heroes’ Medals Return “Home,” Fort Carson Mountaineer (Dec. 14, 2017), http://www.fortcarsonmountaineer.com/2017/12/heroes-medals-return-home/.
9. For example, in writing about the counterattack that he led himself, Romesha states, “we [emphasis on the team] were launching a counterattack.” Romesha, supra note 2, at 225. See also Nathan S. Webster, Clinton Romesha Chronicles the Battle that Earned Him the Medal of
Honor,
Daily Beast, http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/06/11/clinton-romesha-chronicles-the-battle-that-won-him-the-medal-of-honor.html
(July 12, 2017, 7:41 PM) (“He was worried that his ‘I’ would overwhelm
the story of the other men—in fact, the word ‘I’ does not appear until
page 12.”).
10. Romesha, supra note 2, at 349.
11. Id. at 375–76.
12. Id. at 223.
13. Id. at 223–25.
14. Executive Summary—AR 15-6
Investigation re: Complex Attack on COP Keating—3 Oct 09, at 1 (2009),
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/world/AR15-6Sum.pdf
[hereinafter Executive Summary].
15. Romesha, supra note 2, at 70.
16. Even so, the reader is left with the impression that Romesha was acutely aware of the military challenges faced by the United States in Afghanistan, and was the same type of Soldier as the one described by Sebastian Junger in War this way:
once in awhile you’d meet a soldier who didn’t fit into any clear category, though. These were men who believed in the war but also recognized the American military’s capacity for self-delusion. ‘We’re not going to win the war until we admit we’re losing it,’ one of these guys told me in the spring of 2008.
Junger, supranote 1, at 133–34.
17. Romesha, supra note 2, at 73.
18. Executive Summary, supra note 14, at 1.
19. Romesha, supra note 2, at 73.
20. For one example, Romesha devotes a short paragraph to explaining the meaning of Quick Reaction Force (QRF). Id. at 303.
21. In an interview, Romesha stated his belief that interviewing the guys he served with “would paint a more clear, concise, and full view of the battle in its entirety.” Adam Linehan, Medal of Honor Recipient Clint Romesha on Why Soldiers Go to
War,
Task & Purpose, http://taskandpurpose.com/medal-honor-recipient-clinton-romesha-soldiers-go-war/
(Dec. 12, 2020, 9:24 AM).
22. This remark is intended as somewhat of a credit to Romesha rather than a slight to journalists. Also, author Kevin Fedarko is reported to have assisted Romesha on Red Platoon, though he is not listed as a co-author. Webster, supra note 9. See also Romesha, supra note 2, at 378.
23. Jake Tapper, The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor (2012).
24. Id.
25. Id. at 467–84.
26. Obviously this did not keep Romesha or his fellow Soldiers from commenting on the tactical failings of the COP itself, and of the relative importance for them to hold this piece of ground. See Romesha, supra note 2, at 73.
27. Tapper, supra note 23, at 505–92.
28. Medal of Honor Recipient, and the Battle That Stays Forever
(CBS Sunday Morning May 1, 2016), https://www.cbsnews.com/video/medal-of-honor-recipient-and-the-battle-that-stays-forever/.
29. Even so, General (Retired, U.S. Army) Stanley McChrystal provides a very favorable review of his book. Praise, Penguin Random House, http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/317810/red-platoon-by-clinton-romesha/9780525955054/ (last visited Sept. 22, 2016) (scroll down in the “Praise” section and General McChrystal’s view can be read).
30. In the epilogue alone, Tapper writes about the realities of combat, the Army Regulation 15-6 investigation, fallen Soldiers from the Battle of Kamdesh, resourcing post-traumatic stress disorder, the need for Afghan Forces to take the lead, Soldier memorials, as well as Romesha’s and Staff Sergeant Ty Carter’s Medals. Tapper, supra note 23, at 602–22.
31. The Medal of Honor Knoxville Convention Committee Announces
Distinguished Group of 2014 Awardees, Medal of Honor Convention (June 9, 2014), http://www.mohconvention.com/the-moh-blog/145/the-medal-of-honor-knoxville-convention-committee-announces-distinguished-group-of-2014-awardees/.
32. David Westin, Uncommon Reporting: The Story of Clint Romesha, HuffPost, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-westin/the-story-of-clint-romesha_b_2665366.html (Apr. 13, 2013).
33. Jake Tapper & Chelsea J. Carter, An American Hero: The Uncommon Valor of Clint Romesha, CNN (Feb. 8, 2013), http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/08/us/uncommon-valor/
34. Romesha, supra note 2, at 376.
35. Westin, supra note 32.
36. In fact, The Outpost concludes with a bold statement: “[T]he men and women of 3-71 CAV, the 1-91 Cav, 6-4 Cav, and especially 3-61 Cav deserved better. They are heroes, and they have my appreciation and eternal gratitude. I wish they had a command structure and a civilian leadership that were always worthy of their efforts.” Tapper, supra note 23, at 622.
37. Romesha, supra note 2, at 376.