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Overview
As David Lipsky follows a future generation of army officers from their proving grounds to their barracks, he reveals the range of emotions and desires that propels these men and women forward. From the cadet who struggles with every facet of West Point life to those who are decidedly huah, Lipsky shows people facing challenges so daunting and responsibilities so heavy that their transformations are fascinating to watch. Absolutely American is a portrait of a unique institution and those who make up its ranks.Synopsis
Lipsky, a Rolling Stone writer and an award-winning novelist, chronicles daily life at the U.S. Military Academy during the most tumultuous period in its history.
In 1998, West Point made David Lipsky an unprecedented offer: stay at the Academy as long as you like, go wherever you wish, talk to whomever you want, to discover why some of America's most promising young people sacrifice so much to become cadets. Lipsky followed one cadet class into mess halls, barracks, classrooms, bars, and training exercises, from arrival through graduation. By telling their stories, he also examines the Academy as a reflection of our society: Are its principles of equality, patriotism, and honor quaint anachronisms or is it still, as Theodore Roosevelt called it, the most "absolutely American" institution?
During arguably the most eventful four years in West Point's history, Lipsky witnesses the arrival of TVs and phones in dorm rooms, the end of hazing, and innumerable other shifts in policy and practice known collectively as The Changes. He uncovers previously unreported scandals and poignantly evokes the aftermath of September 11, when cadets must prepare to become officers in wartime.
Absolutely American spotlights a remarkable ensemble of characters: a former Eagle Scout who struggles with every facet of the program, from classwork to marching; a foul-mouthed party animal who hates the military and came to West Point to play football; a farm-raised kid who seems to be the perfect soldier, despite his affection for the early work of Georgia O’Keeffe; and an exquisitely turned-out female cadet who aspires to "a career in hair and nails" after the Army. These cadets and their classmates are transformed in fascinating, sometimes astonishing, ways by one of America's most mythologized and least understood challenges. Many of them thrive under the rigorous regimen; others battle endlessly just to survive it. A few give up the fight altogether.
Lipsky's extensive experience covering college students for Rolling Stone helped him gain an exceptional degree of trust and candor from both cadets and administrators. They offer frank insights on drug use, cheating, romance, loyalty, duty, patriotism, and the Army's tortuous search for meaning as new threats loom.
The New York Times
…Absolutely American: Four Years at West Point, a superb description of modern military culture, and one of the most gripping accounts of university life I have read. Lipsky follows several cadets and faculty members through their years at the academy, and their stories are the most powerful parts of this book. — David Brooks
Editorials
The New York Times
…Absolutely American: Four Years at West Point, a superb description of modern military culture, and one of the most gripping accounts of university life I have read. Lipsky follows several cadets and faculty members through their years at the academy, and their stories are the most powerful parts of this book. — David BrooksThe New Yorker
In 1998, the commandants at West Point offered the author, a Rolling Stone reporter, unfettered access to their students. The result is a sunny portrait of a group of young men and women who, as one of them says, "don't quite fit in." Lipsky touches on some recent, controversial attempts at modernizing the academy -- such as a ban on hazing and the promotion of "consideration of others" (which in the context of the Army could, in an "extreme instance," mean jumping on a grenade to save the lives of your fellow-soldiers) -- but he is more effective as a chronicler of personality than of politics. A cadet defaces his uniform to protest softening standards; a bodybuilder worries that his future wife, following him from post to post, won't have a career; a football star fears life after graduation, wondering, "Can I think for myself?" Though initially ill-disposed toward the military, Lipsky eventually found that "of all the young people I'd met, the West Point cadets -- although they are grand, epic complainers -- were the happiest."Publishers Weekly
This superb group portrait of the corps of cadets at West Point focuses on the four years of Company G-4, "the Fighting Guppies." Entering in 1999, just after hazing was abolished, its cadets graduated into the post-September 11 world. They include all sorts and conditions of people, as well as, these days, both sexes (women are 14% of the corps of cadets) and varied class, ethnic and national backgrounds. Rolling Stone reporter Lipsky (The Art Fair) focuses on cadets like George Rash, repeatedly passing the physical fitness tests by the skin of his teeth if at all, but finding support and comradeship that eventually brings him to graduation into the Engineers. Then there is "Huck" Finn, a hulking football player whom no one would suspect of leadership qualities until he leads his team to victory in a military-skills competition. Dan Herzog graduates just as G-4 enters and spends four years wrestling with what he wants out of the army (not broken romances), and Col. Henry Keirsey is forced out of the army for backing a subordinate who made a non-PC joke. Lipsky is evenhanded with the Keirsey affair and with other controversial aspects of both the military in general and West Point in particular, even if his prose occasionally lapses into infelicitous journalese. Ultimately, he came to respect and know the people he was following, future officers of the U.S. Army in a world at war. (July) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.KLIATT
Nearly everyone has formed some idea of what the US Military Academy is all about: "Duty, Honor, Country"; Generals Lee and Pershing; and the Long Gray Line. Although the staff at West Point has always tried to maintain a cloistered environment in which to change callow boys into dependable officers, today's plebes are a challenge. Just as smart and eager as their more self-disciplined predecessors, they also are more laid back, steeped in pop culture, and in many ways more sophisticated. Mix in an academy that is already trying to cope with female cadets, the Internet, and a high-tech Army culture, and you have something quite different from the West Point that Douglas MacArthur knew. It is unusual that the Army would allow a media reporter four years of absolutely unfettered access to one of the nation's strictest environments. Even more unlikely is that it would turn out to be a writer for Rolling Stone, which might be expected to take an irreverent view of the whole thing. But author David Lipsky kept his balance, and he formed long-term relationships with numerous cadets, joining them in their rooms, parties, and bull sessions. They responded by treating him as a friend and confidant. Lipsky marched and sweated exams with them, ate in the dining hall, attended lectures and their private beer busts, learned their lingo and—most importantly—watched most of them develop into responsible adults and thoughtful professionals. The narrative is a collection of bite-sized observations and discoveries, full of deft insights, humor, and even gossip. Before the reader is halfway through the book, he comes to know numerous cadets and their officers as individuals and, in thenature of people everywhere, is often surprised by them. By the time the final graduation ceremony rolled around, Lipsky found that he had changed as much as his subjects. KLIATT Codes: SA—Recommended for senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 2003, Random House, Vintage, 337p. illus., Ages 15 to adult.—Raymond Puffer