War on Two Fronts: An Infantry Commander's War in Iraq and the Pentagon

Army, Feb 2008 by Fontenot, Gregory

War on Two Fronts: An Infantry Commander's War in Iraq and the Pentagon. Col. Christopher P. Hughes. casemate. 306 pages; color photographs; index; $32.95.

Col. Christopher Hughes' War on Two Fronts: An Infantry Commander's War in Iraq and the Pentagon is both a memoir of his combat experience and an essay on potential solutions to problems he identifies on everything from the war to interagency collaboration. Hughes is a genuine hero; when heroes write, the rest of us can learn. Most important, we are reminded that our heroes are people after all.

War on Two Fronts is a first-class personal account of combat in Iraq and how bureaucracies wage war. Hughes is a proven combat leader with sophisticated perceptions of what will work in an ambiguous environment. In the Pentagon, on the other hand, he turned out to be just as confounded by the complexity and the bureaucracy as anyone else. More surprising, he proved naive-which is refreshing. Hughes fought hard in Iraq and in "the building" and survived bothwith his enthusiasm and faith in the country and the Army intact.

Some fundamental insights emerge from Hughes' account. First, command in battle is hard even when you are winning. In addition, combat operations are a constant kaleidoscope of change in which little is known for certain. Effective command in battle requires confident and adaptable leadership; flexible and effective tactical formations are the result. Control is not the same as command: Faith shared between soldiers and their leaders is vital. Finally, there may be no recognizable transitions between events until reflecting upon them after the fact. The concept of full spectrum operations, therefore, means that units must be able to do any of the tasks imagined in that concept in any sequence-even simultaneously. Commanders will make mistakes in combat operations, no matter how talented and determined they are. These are all things Hughes may have suspected before he took his battalion into Iraq in March 2003. By the time he had to depart command and leave his troops-as he puts it-in harm's way, he knew these things with certainty.

Although Hughes had served in the Pentagon prior to the summer of 2003, when he returned it was as if he had never served there before. Joining the Army initiatives group, he became, according to his metaphor, a "footstool at the seat of power." This section of War on Two Fronts is not as strong as his memoir of commanding his battalion, but it is nonetheless important and well worth reading. Although intimidated at first by his proximity to power and maybe a bit overawed, Hughes learned his way quickly. Moreover, he learned by doing important work. For example, he played a critical role in getting the Improvised Explosive Device Task Force under way.

In his foreword to War on Two Fronts, Rick Atkinson places Hughes in the tradition of Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman, both of whose memoirs help us understand the Civil War. The comparison is an insightful one. Hughes is by no means as good a writer as Grant was, but Grant had help from Mark Twain. Hughes, on the other hand, is much better than Sherman. War on Two Fronts makes real contributions to understanding battalion command in both conventional and unconventional operations and to understanding the essence of full spectrum operations.

This memoir should encourage others to tell their stories and provide grist for young soldiers as they consider their profession. Soldiers should write despite Hughes' own fears of the stigma that is attached to soldiers who do. They should write to eliminate the demons and to teach and share a bit of their humanness. All soldiers can see bits of themselves in Hughes' story and also someone to emulate.

-Col. Gregory Fontenot, USA Ret.