Summary of Nathaniel Fick's One Bullet Away

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 I went to Dartmouth intending to go to med school. But I ended up majoring in the classics. I didn’t understand what I, at age 22, could be consulted about. I wanted to be a warrior.

#2 I had family who had served in World War II, and my father had enlisted in the Army in 1968. The Marine Corps promised nothing, but they asked if I had what it took. If I was going to serve in the military, I would be a Marine.

#3 I joined the Marines in 1998, just as the United States was cashing in its post-cold war peace dividend. I thought I was joining a peacetime military, but the truth was that the Marines needed a certain number of officers, so competition existed between us.

#4 The Marine transformation is one of American life’s storied tests. I knew its reputation was earned. I was apprehensive about going through it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Jun 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822531536

IRB Media

With IRB books, you can get the key takeaways and analysis of a book in 15 minutes. We read every chapter, identify the key takeaways and analyze them for your convenience.

Book preview

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

I went to Dartmouth intending to go to med school. But I ended up majoring in the classics. I didn’t understand what I, at age 22, could be consulted about. I wanted to be a warrior.

#2

I had family who had served in World War II, and my father had enlisted in the Army in 1968. The Marine Corps promised nothing, but they asked if I had what it took. If I was going to serve in the military, I would be a Marine.

#3

I joined the Marines in 1998, just as the United States was cashing in its post-cold war peace dividend. I thought I was joining a peacetime military, but the truth was that the Marines needed a certain number of officers, so competition existed between us.

#4

The Marine transformation is one of American life’s storied tests. I knew its reputation was earned. I was apprehensive about going through it.

#5

At the beginning of the process, candidates are introduced to the school’s staff, who are called sergeant instructors. The staff takes charge and carries out the plan of the day. I wanted to escape, but pride kept me in line.

#6

I had seen Full Metal Jacket, and it didn’t feel like a joke. When Olds spoke to me, icy adrenaline washed through my chest. My legs shook. The worst part was that Olds knew he’d gotten to me. He would increase the pressure.

Insights from Chapter 2

#1

The morning routine at the Marine Corps base was to throw the switch on the fluorescent lights at five o’clock. We had five seconds to launch from our racks, slide into our black rubber flip-flops, and assume the position of attention with our toes along a black line that ran the length of the squad bay.

#2

I had walked into the Marine recruiting office in Lebanon, New Hampshire, three weeks after Tom Ricks’s talk. I was intent on becoming an officer in the Marine Corps, and Captain Steven Ettien was there to evaluate my fitness. I passed the three events, and Captain Ettien began training me for the run, followed by crunches, and then pull-ups.

#3

I was a machine when it came to OCS. I could run three miles in sixteen minutes and do twenty-five dead-hang pull-ups. However, OCS rarely tested what we’d already trained for.

#4

Olds was waiting to march us back to the squad bay. He had made me lead the platoon across the parade deck while he took over calling the cadence. It wasn’t words so much as a haunting wail, rising and falling like a plaintive southern spiritual.

#5

I screwed up my lefts and rights, and the tempo surged and sagged. I was nervous, and I wanted to be there, but I knew that the only easy day was yesterday. Success the day before meant nothing, and tomorrow might never happen.

#6

I was in training to be a Marine officer, and I was expected to memorize the 14 leadership traits, the 8 principles of camouflage, and the 6 battlefield disciplines. The curriculum seemed ridiculous at first, but I was told that in combat, there is rarely time for discussion and debate.

#7

The staff had a vested interest in killing bad candidates before bad officers killed Marines. They could yell and scream, make us put on and take off our socks fifteen times each morning, and harass us from reveille to taps, but after commissioning, the authority would shift to the candidates.

Insights from Chapter 3

#1

The Crucible was our final exercise. We’d all heard rumors