Battle Ready

Tony Zinni spent nearly forty years in the Marine Corps and became known as the "Warrior Diplomat." He served as an infantry officer in Vietnam, commanded rescue operations in Somalia, and as Commander in Chief of CENTCOM directed strikes against Iraq and Al Qaeda. Yet he made an equally strong mark as a peacemaker, taking on dangerous troubleshooting missions across Africa, Asia, and Europe.

After his retirement from command he served as Secretary of State Colin Powell's special envoy to the Middle East. He later resigned over disagreements about the 2003 Iraq war and what its aftermath was likely to bring.

Battle Ready, written with Tom Clancy, is both a personal story and a history of the institution Zinni served. It traces how he and the Marine Corps changed together, from the hard lessons of Vietnam through the operational overhaul of the 1970s and 1980s, and on to the post-Cold War, post-9/11 military, which has a very different set of tools at its disposal.

What the military's job should be, and which tools suit it, remain sharply contested questions. Zinni leaves no doubt about where he stands.