Since the evening of March 19, 2003, when for­mer US Pres­i­dent George Bush is­sued his ul­ti­ma­tum to Sad­dam Hus­sein to go in­to ex­ile or face the con­se­quences, the Iraq War has been con­sis­tent­ly viewed through the prism of par­ti­san pol­i­tics and me­dia pun­dit­ry. As a re­sult, many Amer­i­cans are ei­ther too dis­il­lu­sioned or con­fused to un­der­stand the true cir­cum­stances be­hind this con­flict. Mean­while, oth­ers feel re­moved from the re­al­i­ties of the war, and don't care enough to ask ques­tions. Ma­rine Lieu­tenant Jane Blair's mem­oir, Hes­i­ta­tion Kills, man­ages to peel away these lay­ers of ob­fus­ca­tion.

Lieu­tenant Blair was one of 13 women in a unit that con­sist­ed of over two hun­dred marines. While all the sol­diers want­ed to prove that they were ca­pa­ble, this dri­ve to suc­ceed was even more pro­found for Blair-be­cause she was not on­ly rep­re­sent­ing her­self, but her en­tire gen­der as well. Blair was a mem­ber of the 3rd Ma­rine Air­craft Wing. It was their job to use un­manned aer­i­al ve­hi­cles (UAVs) to per­form re­con­nais­sance for in­com­ing in­fantry forces. The in­side look that Blair pro­vides in­to the dy­nam­ic be­tween the use of tech­nol­o­gy and the hu­man el­e­ment be­hind it is a crit­i­cal as­pect of her book. How­ev­er, it is Blair's per­son­al sto­ry-as well as the tri­als and tri­umphs of her fel­low marines and the Iraqis she met-which en­velops the read­er on a more per­son­al lev­el.

Blair's ex­pe­ri­ences are far more mul­ti­fac­eted than just the ad­ver­si­ty she faced as a woman, or the com­plex­i­ties of her job as a UAV op­er­a­tor. She re­lates her jour­ney as she morphs from a shel­tered and priv­i­leged girl com­ing of age in Man­hat­tan's East Vil­lage and Mi­a­mi Beach, to an ad­ven­tur­ous young woman who trav­els the world in­de­pen­dent­ly. The in­sights gained of­fer ad­di­tion­al con­text be­hind her de­ci­sion to join the Ma­rine Corps. The anec­dotes that Blair pro­vides about her re­la­tion­ships with mem­bers of her unit en­able the read­er to de­vel­op an un­der­stand­ing of the com­mon val­ues and shared sen­si­bil­i­ties that bind all marines. The rap­port she has with her com­mand­ing of­fi­cer-in ad­di­tion to the lessons about lead­er­ship that he im­parts to her and how she in­te­grates these in­to the way she com­mands her troops-is ex­treme­ly com­pelling. As Blair al­ludes, the mil­i­tary cor­ner­stones of re­spect, be­ing in touch with the needs of one's sub­or­di­nates, and the abil­i­ty to main­tain com­po­sure un­der pres­sure, are equal­ly ap­plic­a­ble and use­ful in every­day life.

Blair writes about the love she shared with her hus­band, and how it sus­tained them both dur­ing their si­mul­ta­ne­ous de­ploy­ments to sep­a­rate fronts with­in Op­er­a­tion Iraqi Free­dom. These as­pects of Hes­i­ta­tion Kills en­able it to bridge the gap be­tween a mil­i­tary and civil­ian read­er­ship, and to res­onate on mul­ti­ple lev­els. In her mem­oir, Blair ef­fec­tive­ly melds the for­mal tech­nique of a ground in­tel­li­gence re­port with a col­lo­qui­al and con­ver­sa­tion­al tone to pro­duce a provoca­tive piece of writ­ing. On the book's fi­nal page, Blair con­cludes that it is nec­es­sary for more sol­diers to share their ex­pe­ri­ences, so that that we can un­der­stand and learn from the past in or­der to bet­ter pre­pare for and shape the fu­ture. She asks, "What was the pur­pose of any war, if the strug­gles of man were for­got­ten?"

• Hes­i­ta­tion Kills by Jane Blair

IS­BN 9781442208702011

Row­man and Lit­tle­field Pub­lish­ers, Inc, 2011

Avail­able at Barnes and No­ble.com; Bor­ders.com; Ama­zon.com

Philip Dublow

Philip Dubow is a stu­dent at the Sum­mit School.

He is in­tern­ing un­der Dr Glenville Ash­by