‘Undaunted’

Review by Bill Doughty––

Sometimes an old book can inspire a new understanding.

Stephen E. Ambrose’s “Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West” (Simon & Schuster, 1996) has been sitting on my library shelf for more than 20 years. Ambrose is no McCullough, but he was passionate to the point of near obsession about this subject. I finally slogged through “Undaunted” over the summer because I wanted to learn more about the Lewis & Clark trail.

Written primarily as a biography of Lewis, “Undaunted Courage” also explores the age of empire in North America and European Americans’ encounters with indigenous peoples –– the actual descendants of discoverers of the continent. We meet the peaceful Mandans, humble Shoshone, helpful Nez Percé, wily Ciatsops, friendly Chinooks, and warlike Teton Sioux of the early 19th century. We meet 15-year-old pregnant Sacagawea, who provides lifesaving medicine, care, and guide skills to the mission. (The Sacagawea statue, right, at Cascade Locks, Columbia River Gorge, was created by artist Heather Söderberg in 2010.)

The mission itself was an unsuccessful attempt to find a water route across the continent. The Lewis & Clark team was an infantry company of the U.S. Army called the “Corps of Discovery.” Jefferson commissioned the expedition as the Louisiana Purchase came to light and efforts were made to fend off French and British claims. An objective was “to establish American sovereignty, peace, and a trading empire.”

This book comes with wonderful charts by A. Karl and J. Kemp showing the various routes the team took along the Missouri River, through what are now Iowa, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon, all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

At the time, Virginia pointed toward the West, and St. Louis was the very edge of the American frontier in the early 1800s.

Trained in exploration, armed with mapping tools, and taught how to preserve specimens, Lewis discovered species of animals and plants previously unknown to Europeans. He received help from Clark and two dozen enlisted soldiers, from many civilians who lived among or traded with the Indians, and from hundreds of Indians themselves.

Jefferson was inspired to commission the expedition after reading a book by Alexander Mackenzie, a Scotsman who explored parts of the Pacific Northwest and called for a British claim to a Northwest Empire in 1793. Both Jefferson and Lewis were inspired by Capt. James Cook’s 1784 book, “A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean.” 

Ambrose paints a time of antiquity –– where slavery, patriarchy, and hardship were normal and accepted. Where time itself was measured in how long it took to travel by horse. No telephones. No engines. No antibiotics. No mosquito repellant. No sunglasses or sunscreen. No GPS.

How most of the members of the expedition managed to survive the arduous journey is a story of luck, grit, and resilience. And it’s a story of the abundance of the North American continent in the early 1800s. The expedition killed thousands of deer, buffalo, elk, beaver, and other wildlife. They gorged on salmon and, when necessary, ate horses and dogs.

Lacking humility but with an abundance of confidence, Lewis met with various tribes and tried to “coerce through commerce,” trading beads, tobacco, and tools for horses, information, and services. He promised the Indians their “father” in Washington would take care of them. He gave them American flags, certificates, and medals. He cajoled and threatened.

“Lewis did all this with the utmost seriousness,” Ambrose writes. “It never occurred to him that his actions might be characterized as patronizing, dictatorial, ridiculous, and highly dangerous.”

But, “Virtually all Indian parties proved resistant to change and suspicious of American motives.” Nevertheless, many tribes helped the expedition find food, trails, and water routes. Lewis and Clark astutely tried to identify the chiefs and deal directly with them. As with U.S. military leaders, the chiefs were often chosen from those who had proved themselves in combat.

Ambrose praises Lewis’s ability as a “near-perfect army officer” and a “great company commander, the greatest of all American explorers, and in the top rank of world explorers.”  The U.S. Navy has named several ships related to the expedition. Most notably, the current class of dry cargo replenishment ships is known as Lewis and Clark and includes the namesakes USNS Lewis and Clark (T-AKE 1) and USNS Sacagawea (T-AKE 2).

Airman Brandy Phillips, aviation boatswain's mate (fuels), stands watch in primary flight control aboard the multi-purpose amphibious assault ship USS Bataan during a vertical replenishment with the Military Sealift Command dry cargo and ammunition ship USNS Sacagawea in support of Operation Unified Response off the coast of Haiti after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake, Jan. 12, 2010. (CPO Tony Sisti)

Lewis’s journals were eventually published. His book inspired the great movement West and creation of the American Empire that Jefferson envisioned.

After his return, Lewis went to Philadelphia and went to parties and dinners with his best friend, Mahlon Dickerson, a lawyer who later served as governor of New Jersey, Senator from New Jersey, and Secretary of the Navy under President Andrew Jackson. Lewis, who showed signs of depression, became a heavy drinker and took opium at night.

Lewis, Clark, and Jefferson

Jefferson appointed Lewis governor of Louisiana, but Lewis was not good at politics. His depression got worse. Ambrose writes, “He was tortured” and “his pain was unbearable.” Ambrose describes a gruesome suicide.

Ambrose does not shy away from showing the shortcomings of Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, and Thomas Jefferson. All were privileged and dedicated slave owners who also took advantage of native Americans. They wanted to “civilize” and move the Indians out of the way so white settlers could move in a set up a fur trade and land trade. Lewis’s policies were, in Ambrose’s words, “nothing short of genocide.”

Sometimes an old book can inspire a new understanding. Today is Native American Heritage Day.

Eddie Gallagher & Alpha ‘Loyalty’

Review by Bill Doughty––

David Philipps gives a passionate and compassionate profile of a case that hit the U.S. Navy like a “missile” –– that of former U.S. Navy SEAL Chief Petty Officer Eddie Gallagher, accused of war crimes after his deployment with the Alpha platoon of SEAL Team 7 in “ALPHA: Eddie Gallagher and the War for the Soul of the Navy SEALS” (Penguin Random House, 2021).

This is a book about accountability and justice. And karma.

SEALs in Alpha Platoon, wearing their tridents and under the logo of the “Bad Karma Chick,” saw their role as the embodiment of bad karma: “Alpha was there to make sure that bad things happened to bad people.”

“ALPHA” reads less like a book about war and more like a Shakespearean tragedy of an elite American warfighter who chose a noble journey but somehow took a wrong path. Eddie Gallagher began his career as a Hospital Corpsman and tried in vain to become a SEAL until the Afghanistan and Iraq wars opened a sudden need for more of the Navy’s special operations warfare specialists and Gallagher was accepted. He deployed seven times overseas in the so-called war on terror.

Philipps describes the warfighter after seventeen years of service this way:

“Eddie looked like a Navy SEAL poster boy. He had close-cropped blond hair, glacier-like blue eyes, a strong, square jaw, the shoulders of a lion, and a lion’s killer instinct. He was fast, agile, strong, and a dead shot. But a closer look revealed a face deeply lined from years in the desert sun. After so many deployments, the mileage was starting to show. He was thirty-nine years old. In the military, where the average age is twenty-seven, he was closing in on obsolescence. His back hurt. His neck hurt. His shoulders hurt. He had ringing in his ears from too many gunfights. Sometimes he had trouble remembering  things. Not that he regretted any of it. For all the talk about post-traumatic stress disorder and the unfair burden the nation had put on its warfighters, Eddie never once saw combat as a hardship. He had chosen it. He was good at it. He thrived on it. Truth be told, it was cool as hell. He loved the heart-pounding exhilaration of gunfights. He loved the simple intensity of war. Sometimes he felt it was the only thing that made sense. If there were bad guys out there looking to take on the United States and become martyrs, he was happy to punch their ticket.”

But –– “Beneath that SEAL veneer was a history of disappointments and screw-ups that had dogged him for much of his life,” Philipps writes later in “ALPHA.”

This book reveals a tectonic struggle: rule-of-law ethos exemplified by Adm.(Ret.) William McRaven versus a no-rules “pirate” death-cult personified by former Vietnam-era SEAL Cmdr.(Ret.) Richard “Demo Dick” Marcinko –– and Gallagher.

One side prefers to be quiet, humble, and righteous in their work. The other side is all bravado, might-makes-right, and anything goes, including killing unarmed civilians and prisoners when necessary.

One side meant it when they took their oath to support and defend the Constitution; they are loyal to each other and to the mission. The other side abuses power and demands loyalty in a cult of personality, often putting the mission and team in unnecessary danger.

One side has to work silently within the constraints of the Uniformed Code of Military Justice, committed to truth and justice. The other side uses TV, radio, and social media to bend information, threaten opponents, and smear the Navy chain of command.

One side lives by the SEAL Ethos. The other does not.

“…My loyalty to Country and Team is beyond reproach. I humbly serve as a guardian to my fellow Americans always ready to defend those who are unable to defend themselves. I do not advertise the nature of my work, nor seek recognition for my actions. I voluntarily accept the inherent hazards of my profession, placing the welfare and security of others before my own. 

“I serve with honor on and off the battlefield. The ability to control my emotions and my actions, regardless of circumstance, sets me apart from others. Uncompromising integrity is my standard. My character and honor are steadfast. My word is my bond…”

Gallagher stood trial for allegedly murdering a defenseless Iraqi teenager aligned with ISIS by stabbing him with a knife. Gallagher was turned in by a number of his SEAL teammates, who also claimed to have witnessed him shooting indiscriminately into civilian areas as well as deliberately shooting an unarmed girl and an old man.

Philipps provides damning information about Gallagher’s character, including allegations of stealing from the Navy as well as fellow SEALs, illegal habitual drug use, false claims for a Purple Heart and other medals, lying and putting SEALs in harms way for personal gain, and threatening murder in an attempt to cover up his crimes.

The truth emerges thanks to information from key members of the Alpha Team as well as evidence gathered by NCIS and New York Times, where Philipps is a Pulitzer Prize winning national correspondent.

“ALPHA” presents a brief history of the Navy SEALs, from their founding by Navy WWII veteran President John F. Kennedy, through Vietnam and into the 21st century. Philipps describes the rigorous body-breaking BUD/S training SEALS undergo in Coronado, San Diego –– a crucible where instructors are “striking down hubris like ancient gods.”

He introduces readers to a fascinating cast of characters, each on a spectrum of loyalty to each other, to Navy core values, and to the Constitution. There’s LPO (now Chief) Craig Miller, in many ways the hero of this tragedy; CAPT Matt Rosenbloom, a leader of leaders who put his SEALs ahead of outside threats, including to his career; and Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer, who, like other characters in this story, tries to build a bridge to what was right, only to see his infrastructure crumble under politics and undue influence by the commander in chief.

When SECNAV Spencer was fired for appearing to disobey the president’s bidding immediately, Spencer said it was “just politics,” but was it “just” –– in both meanings of the word? Spencer, a former Marine whose mentor was SECDEF James Mattis, believed in strong standards and values. He tried to allow the SEALs to conduct an ethical review. Philipps writes, “Civilian rule of the military was a delicate thing. It required respect, deference, and a mutual understanding.” It did not do well with heavy-handed tipping of the scale of justice.

Trump and Gallagher

Philipps shows former President Trump’s role in the Gallagher case; disgraced Trump acolytes Bernard Kerik and Duncan Hunter as well as Trump lawyer Marc Mukasey helped Gallagher. Later, Gallagher hobnobbed with Michael Flynn, Erik and Donald Trump Jr., and Rudy Giuliani. Gallagher endorsed and campaigned for Donald Trump, and was feted at Mar a Lago. Trump granted clemency to Gallagher and pardoned two other service members who had been found guilty of war crimes.

The dark side of “loyalty” can be seen in the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021. It can be seen in the code of silence over police brutality and killings that prompted the BLM protests and riots in the summer of 2020. The dark side of “loyalty” can be found in grievance and resentment and fear of the Other. It can be seen in anyone forgetting their oath to the Constitution and pledging their loyalty to a Big Lie and cult of personality that rejects democracy and embraces fascism and autocracy.

Facebook provides a platform for SEALs to express their support of Gallagher and the “pirate” ethos. “None of the SEALs on Facebook seemed to care that a chief had targeted civilians,” Philipps says. “They were just mad that guys in Alpha had said anything about it.”

"ALPHA" tells the story of true loyalty. Some characters, notably another former corpsman and SEAL, Corey Scott, fail in their commitment to the truth. Others, like Chief Craig Miller, rise to the challenge and stand tall.

Karma is on their side.

Miller, the leading petty officer of Alpha platoon during the Iraq deployment of 2017, uses his experience to teach young SEAL leaders about ethical choices, norms and virtues. Philipps describes Miller’s view: “In real ways, the future of humanity was built by the small actions of millions of everyday folks, and it could be torn down the same way.”

U.S. Navy SEAL candidates participate in Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) training. SEALs are the maritime component of U.S. Special Forces and are trained to conduct a variety of operations from the sea, air and land. (U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Abe McNatt)

(This year a podcast called “The Line” explored various sides of the Eddie Gallagher saga and his war crimes trial in 2019 based on witness reports that he stabbed the ISIS teenager to death. In the podcast Gallagher says, “We killed that guy. Our intention was to kill him.” Gallagher admits. “It was to do medical scenarios on him until he died,” adding “He was going to die regardless. ... We weren't taking any prisoners.”

Speaking of karma: 

A new four-part documentary video series on Apple+, also called "The Line,” airs starting today.

"The Line" is by a team led by filmmaker Alex Gibney, Oscar winner for 2007’s Afghanistan War documentary "Taxi to the Dark Side." Directors Doug Shultz and Jeff Zimbalist obtained the participation of Gallagher; his wife, Andrea; and the members of SEAL Team 7 who stepped forward to accuse Gallagher of war crimes, and all appear on camera.)

A True Patriot and Statesman: Max Cleland

By Bill Doughty––

When Joseph Maxwell "Max" Cleland spoke at the 72nd Pearl Harbor Day commemoration ceremony, Dec. 7, 2013, with Pearl Harbor itself as a backdrop, he was nearly overcome with emotion. He saw the dozens of World War II veterans seated in the front rows of the audience, and he thought of his father. Cleland spoke without notes, from the heart, about the sacrifice of military service and the joy of homecomings.

Army CPT Max Cleland in Vietnam

Hugh Cleland, Max’s dad, joined the Navy after the attack on Oahu in 1941. In 1965, Max volunteered for the Army to serve in combat in Vietnam, where he earned the Silver Star and Bronze Star.

Cleland was severely wounded and nearly killed. Yet, he personified resilience to become head of the Veterans Administration and a U.S. Senator.

Cleland died earlier this week. He was a great statesman, military veteran, and advocate for veterans, especially those with lasting physical and mental wounds.

President Joe Biden issued a statement November 9 on Cleland’s passing:

“Max Cleland was an American hero whose fearless service to our nation, and to the people of his beloved home state of Georgia, never wavered.

As a 25-year-old serving in the 1^st Cavalry Division of the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War, Max lost both of his legs and his right arm in a grenade explosion at Khe Sanh. After grueling months in the hospital, enduring multiple surgeries and a long road back to recovery, Max turned his pain into purpose. He continued his distinguished public service, becoming a lifelong champion of the dignity and rights of working people and America’s wounded veterans. His leadership was the essential driving force behind the creation of the modern VA health system, where so many of his fellow heroes have found lifesaving support and renewed purpose of their own thanks in no small part to Max’s lasting impact... He was a man of unflinching patriotism, boundless courage, and rare character... He will be remembered as one of Georgia’s and America’s great leaders.”

I was fortunate to help plan the Navy’s Pearl Harbor Day commemoration ceremony in 2013 and to hear Max Cleland speak about honor, courage, and commitment –– as well as true family values and patriotism.

In 2013 I posted a Navy Reads review featuring Cleland’s autobiography, “Heart of a Patriot.”

Cleland, who chaired the armed services subcommittee on personnel in the Senate, was known for working closely with both Democratic and Republican colleagues.

Cleland reads about JFK.

From Navy Reads: “His colleagues, mentors and friends in the Senate included fellow combat veterans Chuck Hagel, Dan Inouye, John Kerry and ‘my Vietnam veteran brother’ John McCain. Cleland describes the pride of wearing his dad's WWII Navy peacoat as a U.S. Senator during a presidential inauguration.”

Prior to serving in the Navy for three years during WWII, Max Cleland’s father, Hugh, had served in the Civilian Conservation Corps, an environmental infrastructure program created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression. FDR was an inspiration to a young Max Cleland. Cleland loved books and reading. He authored several books.

Like Biden, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin issued a statement about Senator Cleland’s passing; fittingly, Austin includes references to literature.

In part, SECDEF Austin says:

“The Department of Defense stands united in mourning the loss of Senator Max Cleland, an extraordinary public servant and a great patriot…He served his country and his community from a wheelchair, following in the gallant tradition of his hero President Franklin Roosevelt.”

SECDEF Austin notes that as head of the Veterans Administration, Cleland “fought fiercely for his fellow veterans, made PTSD an official VA diagnosis, and helped create the groundbreaking Vet Centers program. Later, after being elected a U.S. senator from Georgia, he continued his passionate focus on defense and veterans' issues, serving with distinction on the Senate Armed Services Committee and leading on such issues as health care, bioterrorism preparedness, and homeland security. He also served on the 9/11 Commission before being nominated for the board of the Export-Import Bank. His final act of public service was leading the American Battlefield Monuments Commission. When battle maps of Vietnam were added to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii, he asked to add an inscription from the poet Archibald MacLeish: ‘We leave you our deaths: give them their meaning.’

With courage and grit, Senator Cleland struggled with PTSD and depression—seeking help through counseling, medication, and attendance at a recovery group. He said that he drew strength from being around his fellow veterans and wounded warriors, including those from Iraq and Afghanistan. As the head of the VA, he made psychological counseling available to his fellow veterans. And I hope that his example will encourage others carrying unseen wounds to seek out the help they need and deserve. 

Senator Cleland liked to quote Hemingway, who wrote, ‘The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.’ He surely was. Max Cleland's civic-minded spirit, optimism, and resilience will stand as an inspiration to every American.”

Funeral services are planned for early next week.

Senator Max Cleland, RIP.

Vietnam War veteran Max Cleland, a triple amputee, holds a photograph of himself as a child with his father, Hugh, and mother, Juanita, at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl in 2013. (Jamm Aquino, Honolulu Star-Advertiser)

The Senate had six Vietnam combat veterans in January 1997. Sen. Max Cleland, D-Ga., is in the front. Behind him, from left: Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., John Kerry, D-Mass., Chuck Robb, D-Va., and John McCain, R-Ariz. This photo was taken by The World-Herald during Senate orientation the previous month. (Kiley Cruse, The World-Herald)

Top photo: Secretary Max Cleland, American Battle Monuments Commission, delivers keynote remarks during the 72nd anniversary commemoration of the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Oahu. This year’s commemoration theme, “Sound the Alarm,” examines how thousands of Americans answered the call to duty in the wake of the attack. More than 2,500 people attended the Pearl Harbor commemoration. (MC2 Nardel Gervacio)

A Curious Read on the Pandemic

Review by Bill Doughty––

As vaccines and drug treatments turn the tide against the pandemic, numerous books document the initial response by the United States to the novel coronavirus pandemic that began at the end of 2019. This one, by one of the nation’s great contemporary writers, tells the story of some of the key people who helped raise the alarm, write the plan, and show how COVID-19 should be confronted.

A team of talented military veterans were at the heart of the effort.

Michael Lewis is the author of “The Premonition: A Pandemic Story” (W.W. Norton, 2021) on the heels of  “The Fifth Risk.” He says, “…this particular story is about the curious talents of a society, and how those talents are wasted if not led.”

“Curious talents” perfectly describes some of the main characters in this book, especially Veterans Administration doctor Carter Mecher, epidemiologist Richard Hatchett, and California public health doctor Charity Dean. Mecher is described as an intellectual force of nature, who thinks outside the box and who draws other critical/innovative thinkers together through humility, creativity, and honesty. Lewis refers to all three by their first names throughout the book.

Carter and Richard worked as advisers in the Bush43 and Obama administrations and were involved in pandemic response planning under Tom Bossert, President Trump’s first homeland security advisor. Bossert had previously worked with the two public health experts in the George W. Bush administration. (President Bush directed development of a national pandemic response plan after reading John Barry’s “The Great Influenza.”)*

“But then, on April 9, 2018, Trump hired John Bolton as his national security adviser, and the next day, Bolton fired Tom Bossert, and demoted or fired everyone on the biological threat team,” writes Lewis. Funding for pandemic planning was stripped, the team was disbanded, but fortunately Carter and Richard stayed in touch with each other.

Dr. Carter Mecher

Soon after the outbreak occurred in Wuhan, Carter predicted a pandemic and wrote in an email, with H&HS personnel on the string: “History will long remember what we do and what we don’t do at this critical moment. It is time to act and it is past the time to remain silent. This outbreak isn’t going to magically disappear on its own.”

Military readers will be interested to see a team, almost all veterans, who formed around Carter Mecher and Richard Hatchett.

“Seven men, all doctors. All were younger, some a generation younger, than Carter, who about to turn sixty-five. Most had seen combat in Iraq, and all, at one point or another, had worked with Carter in the White House. All except Rajeev Venkayya, who had brought Carter and Richard into the White House in the first place … had served in the military. Duane Caneva and James Lawler had come from the U.S. Navy, Matt Hepburn and Dave Marcozzi from the U.S. Army. And all had a role to play in the event of any pandemic. Lawler ran the Global Center for Health security at the University of Nebraska, for instance. That was a federally funded facility to which any American infected with some deadly new pathogen was likely to be sent to be studied and cared for. They’d treated some of the Ebola patients.”

The team had worked together, usually behind the scenes, for more than ten years combatting MERS, Ebola, and Zika –– and now COVID-19. They were affectionately known as the Wolverines after the 1980s cult film “Red Dawn” (remade in 2012).

The team welcomed their California “Wolverette,” Dr. Charity Dean, after she proved her mettle, demanding to act quickly. She pushed for social distancing, greater testing, and temporary school closures. The Wolverines reached out to her because, in the absence of a federal response to the pandemic, they needed a state to take the initiative. California was it.

“The goal was to find at least one state to take the lead and roll out an aggressive response to the virus, introduce the social interventions outlined in the pandemic plan, and create a domino effect. ‘We had to create an epidemic for an idea,’ said Carter. At some point Duane Caneva realized that he had something to add. He’d been in the shock trauma unit that deployed with marines in Falluja, and not much rattled him, but have also know what he didn’t know. He’d worked with Carter Mecher and James Lawler in the Obama White House, but he didn’t regard himself as really being in the same field … Duane had been invited to the White House for National Security Council meetings to discuss what, if anything, to do about this new outbreak in Wuhan. He was disturbed by the lack of understanding, or even information, those meetings. It was at once shocking and unsurprising to Duane that Carter Mecher, sitting at a desk in his bedroom in Atlanta, was creating a clearer view of a virus in China than anyone in the United States government.”

Duane Caneva put the Wolverines in touch with Charity Dean, the type of person who could “grab hold of an entire state and turn it into an example that might lead the nation.”

Dr. Dean’s story is one of courage, resilience, and commitment. She overcame personal and professional obstacles and developed what would become a California’s plan, taking the state from nearly last to roughly first in testing, for example. Under Gov. Gavin Newsom, California became the first state to implement a stay-at-home order. Charity Dean’s plan would indeed become the national plan, at least for a time.

She wrote, “This is a case for all Americans to rise collectively in the spirit of patriotism with the same vigor and stubborn resolve that our grandparents’ generation rose to meet the moment of WW2.”

Lessons to Learn

The Wolverine team, along with other “curiously talented” characters, including researcher Joe DeRisi, provide some lessons Lewis captures. These takeaways are worth highlighting:

• “For people to learn the needs to want to learn … People learn, but they might not be learning what you’re teaching them.”
• “… the way to change minds was by first changing hearts. Carter ceased his appeals to reason and began to appeal to emotion –– which is to say that he stopped making an argument and began to tell a story.”
• There was a need to develop a global early warning system to identify infectious diseases, but China is a “black hole” because they have “declined to participate.”
• “The U.S. medical-industrial complex … lurched between lethargy and avarice.”
• “Corporations were interested only in stuff that made money. Academics were interested in anything worthy of publication, but once they had their paper done, they tended to lose interest. The government was meant to fill in the blanks, but he U.S. government by now mystified Joe.”
• “The country badly needed a true network … a system.”
• “The absence of federal leadership had triggered a wild free-for-all in the market for pandemic supplies.”
• “Among other consequences of the White House’s strategy was that it gutted the credibility of the career federal officials.”
• “Leaders with the worse judgement smugly claim they have the best.”

Lewis fills “Premonition” with fascinating metaphors –– from firefighting to fake flowers. This is a book that asks to be read from beginning to end to understand the full force of its title and to see how much influence military veterans had in helping to battle the pandemic, especially with help from Charity Dean in California. Crises require leaders who are competent, decisive and truthful.

President Donald Trump watches USNS Comfort (T-AH-20) deploy from Norfolk, VA, to New York City, March 28, 2020. (MCC Mike DiMestico)

Power of Reading

This is also the story of the influence of a great book.* Several times in the narrative, Lewis  reveals the impact of “The Great Influenza” by John Barry, a book we reviewed in March 2020 and an author we then interviewed for Navy Reads in April. Barry’s book about the 1918 pandemic that killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide was a clarion call, and an American president heard the alarm.

President George W. Bush at NIH.

President George W. Bush read Barry’s book in the aftermath of Katrina, and was moved to establish a “whole-of-society plan” to deal with a pandemic. Barry also informally advised President Obama and his administration.

Carter Mecher read "The Great Influenza" and was moved by the different ways two cities handled the crisis in 1918, Philadelphia and St. Louis. Through his remarkable book, Barry influenced the development of the nation’s pandemic response team and plan in place until 2018.

Lewis cites other books that helped the Wolverines. To provide critical thinking skills, the team read James Reason’s “‘Human Error,’ like an owner’s manual of the human mind,” that showed the “best way to guard against error is to design systems with layered and overlapping defenses” –– like slices of Swiss cheese put back together so there are no apparent holes. 

They were also influenced by “Young Men and Fire” by Norman MacLean, author of “A River Runs Through It.”

Charity Dean was moved by William Manchester’s second volume of his biography of Winston Churchill, “Alone,” especially Neville Chamberlain’s failed appeasement policy toward Adolf Hitler after the Nazis invaded Poland and threatened the rest of Europe.

Curiously talented Michael Lewis’s “Premonition” should be read and analyzed by future pandemic fighters for its cool and often mind-blowing insights.

I recommend reading it alongside “Nightmare Scenario” by Yasmeen Abutaleb and Damian Paletta. Theirs is a more detailed, bareknuckled account of the failures of leadership by the Trump administration in confronting the pandemic, especially in the early weeks and months. There is one reference to Carter Mecher and the Red Dawn Wolverines and their emails in “Nightmare” but no mention of James Lawler or Charity Dean. So the books are complementary, each filling in the other’s gaps. And, like John Barry's "The Great Influenza," "Nightmare" shows the biggest needs in a pandemic: a well-led sustained federal response and effective, honest communication to build trust, understanding, and teamwork.

Navy veteran Dr. James Lawler, executive director of international programs and innovation at the Global Center for Health Security at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, gives an overview of the Isolation System for Treatment and Agile Response for high-risk Infections, or ISTARI, to Lt. Gen. Robert L. Miller, U.S. Air Force Surgeon General, Aug. 18, 2021. The ISTARI is located in the Training, Simulation and Quarantine Center in the Davis Global Center at UNMC. (Kent Sievers)

Team Player?

Both books are refreshing to read in the wake of the recent bad news about Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers. Rodgers, who lost the endorsement this week by Prevea Health over Rodgers's anti-vaccination stance. Rodgers tested positive for COVID even though he said he was immune after reportedly taking various unapproved medications. He said he is taking ivermectin, a drug for treating parasitic worms, because he fears ill effects of the vaccine.

The Associated Press reports, “The COVID-19 vaccines authorized for use in the U.S. were tested in tens of thousands of people and proven to be both safe and effective at dramatically reducing the risk of serious disease and death. The vaccines now have been given to more than 200 million Americans and that real-world use plus extra government safety tracking have made clear that serious side effects are extremely rare — and that any risk is far lower than the risks posed by COVID-19.”