The Unforgiving Minute: A Soldier's Education »

A native Rhode Islander, Craig M. Mullaney is currently a member of the Obama-Biden Transition Project.

A West Point grad, Rhodes scholar, and Army Ranger recounts his unparalleled education in the art of war and reckons with the hard wisdom that only battle itself can bestow.

The Barnes & Noble Review

In my 20-year career as a sergeant in the U.S. Army, I gradually became aware of one timeless fact about military life: it's an Us vs. Them war. The "Us" in this case are those who wear the uniform, the "Them" are the larger majority of the population who have never served in the armed forces and who don't have a clue what it feels like to lie on your belly at a rifle range in the temple-throbbing heat, gravel digging into your elbows, helmet tipping onto the bridge of your nose while you squint through the sweat waiting for a pop-up target to show itself 300 meters in the hazy distance, with the clock ticking and the M-16 rifle, loaded with 40 rounds, heavy in your hands and the range's safety instructors on the prowl, ready to thwack you on the helmet if your right leg is not cocked at a precise 45-degree angle; and all the time you're wrestling with the sweat, the helmet and the suffocation, you're aware this is only Stateside training -- what will you do when faced with the real thing in Iraq or Afghanistan?