When the Tempest Gathers: From Mogadishu to the Fight Against ISIS, a Marine Special Operations Commander at War

When the Tempest Gathers is a must read for multiple reasons. Disclaimer: I am a close friend of the author and have served with him in some of the same places at the same time. The book is very well written - thoughtful, intelligent, humble, sense of humor and engaging. One of my favorite aspects of his book, it feels like you are in a room with the author talking about his experiences over a beer.Not to tell you what you already know but, in a memoir, authors choose a pivotal moment in their lives and try to recreate the event through storytelling. The author’s feelings and assumptions are central to the narrative. Memoirs still include all the facts of the event, but the author has more flexibility here because they are telling a story as he or she remembers it, not as others can prove or disprove it.This war memoir is a great read, it’s exciting and takes you around the world for three decades – yes, the author is a magnet for bullets and mayhem. Honestly, my favorite parts of the book are when the author struggles at a personal and professional level and really shares his feelings. His challenges as a husband and father. His struggles with the trauma he had to endure. His challenges as a young leader and the increasing complexity that comes with increasing responsibility throughout his career. His grappling with the responsibility’s military officers have in modern society. The entire book is great but my favorite chapter is his shortest, The Epilogue. The author really lays bare the struggles that are in his mind and heart and succinctly sums it up in these three pages. Reading the book and knowing the author, he has more to personally share and I look forward to reading that in the future.In closing, this book is a must read for people who want to be a professional in the “profession of arms” or if you just enjoy an engaging, thoughtful and funny read. Reading it at different times in your military and/or civilian career will give you a different experience and different takeaways. The book is great!

Andrew Milburn served for over two decades as a Marine officer in Somalia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. He spent most of his time working in the special operations community, concluding with command of a multinational, multi-branch command in Iraq. He falls in the tradition of the “warrior scholar” found across all branches, and he writes both well and smart. His book emphasizes ground-level action while providing enough career and personal details to connect the dots. If you are interested in what modern ground warfare is like, that makes up the bulk of his book.However, modern ground warfare does not provide the most interesting parts of this book. Along the way Milburn engages the question of when an officer may not, even must not, obey a lawful order. This was the subject of his thesis in the Marine Corps War College, and it ignited a firestorm when a Pentagon journal published it. Milburn doesn’t make a big deal of the issue in his action stories, but he does mention that he wishes he had disobeyed one particular order early in his career, and he tells of having disobeyed a different order while rescuing American civilians from Libya.Once he becomes a battalion commander, Milburn ends up making political decisions in the very complicated landscape of Iraq. Various warring groups and factions make and break alliances with each other, and their attitudes toward the United States also vary. He receives some high-level guidance about groups he must avoid and groups he must support, but other than that, he’s on his own. Milburn has a classical English education that ended in a law degree, so he has a broader perspective of human affairs than others do. On the other hand, he doesn’t speak Arabic or other regional languages, and he gets only a cursory training in Middle Eastern politics. He seems to navigate the situation well, but it’s crazy that the US military relies on combat personnel and not on political experts to navigate these kinds of situations.Politics provides a third theme of the book. Throughout his memoirs, Milburn provides thoughtful reflections on fighting a war while disagreeing with many political decisions that determined the strategic direction of these wars. He acknowledges that many died in vain, and that many of the severely wounded suffer needlessly. While the book focuses on episodic action, Milburn regularly tries to make sense of it all. Like soldiers and Marines who fight for their buddies, not a cause, he finds meaning in executing his missions.Taken a whole, the book offers an important defense of that perspective, one that sees excellence in execution as its purpose. This well-written book will offer civilians not just insights into modern war-fighting but also food for thought about the role of the US military overall.

Well written and often erudite history of one Marines career and experiences and through conflict and wars. Can't help asking myself as I read his story and sense a sadness was the absence from home and family for dubious decisions politicians made worth the sacrifices he made.The author is,clearly a,patriot dedicated to both country and family. But he appears,to question respectfully the wars and ConFlicts to which he was sent such as an Iraqi invasion that unsettled the Middle East for years to come and arguably have rise to Isis how our nation should spend its human treasure. Battles won only to be abandoned such as Fallujah and Mosel were emblematic of our errors and a cost to dear to fathom.Our national leaders must not squander the lives of heroes as the author in adventures such such as Afghanistan going on 19 years for what? To turn it over to the enemy and chaos like Viet Name when we leave . The writer makes it clear that the invasion of Iraq was a,distraction to the goal of defeating the Am Qaeda in Afghanistan where Bin Laden was. Get the marines went and died and we left a country with 100,000 dead and terrorists such as ISIS .THE. Book wasn't fun readying but necessary to learn once again from the the mistakes of our national leaders.

This is much more than a book about military stories.There is loads of information on how the military plan and conduct operations and about man management that could easily be made in to a separate book that would be a best seller. The closest I have come to reading anything like it is Steve Waughs autobiography “ out of my comfort zone “.I have worked in some of the countries the author fought in and even though I was there at the time reading this book made sense of it all for the first time .The style of writing is edgy , controversial , enlightening, descriptive sometimes alluding towards a topic that had me wanting more detail .I definitely want to read and hear more from Colonel Milburn.

An enthralling account of Col. Andrew Millburns time in Afghanistan with the US Marines. An important book well worth reading.