Ganbare!

Review by Bill Doughty

Juxtaposed: the glory earned by Hawaii’s famed 442nd Regimental Combat Team in WWII and the humiliation endured by some of Hawaii’s Japanese immigrants and Americans of Japanese Ancestry incarcerated during the war.  

Along with other people of Japanese ancestry in the mainland and in Central and South America, immigrants and their families in Hawaii were literally caught up in the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor of Dec. 7, 1941 and placed in internment camps in Hawaii and on the U.S. mainland.

The story of these prisoners is told by Patsy Sumie Saiki in Ganbare! An Example of Japanese Spirit, copyright 1982.  “Ganbare,” a word used frequently in everyday conversation in Japanese, means “don’t give up,” “keep going,” “persevere,” “keep trying.”

Saiki interviewed dozens of Japanese American internees and several former military internment camp leaders, giving her book the feel of an oral history. 

She shows examples of the unintended consequences of war and how quickly some people are ready to shed moral or ethical values in the name of assumed greater security.  Saiki reveals how immigrants’ fishing boats were strafed and how even U.S. planes were shot down in friendly fire incidents in the foggy aftermath of the attack.  She introduces us to the families torn apart when an Imperial Japanese military pilot was shot down and stranded on the island of Ni‘ihau.  

Internee tents at Sand Island in December, 1941.

We learn about the stockades and camps at Kalaheo, Kauai and Haiku, Maui.  We see how the prisoners lived and adapted on Sand Island, Oahu and at camps in Wisconsin, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, New Mexico and other states.

Prisoners had creative ways of dealing with the humiliation of incarceration.  When they had to use the latrine they would have to report to the guard and say “Prisoner.”  Instead, the internees would purposely mispronounce the word and report as “Pissoner.”  Such pranks have a familiar ring.  It’s how POWs, like Gerald Coffee in Vietnam, dealt with similar situations.

The concept of “Ganbare!” -- endure and overcome -- is raised time and again as detainees faced family separation, loss of dignity and other hardships.

What also helped them the most?  The Hawaiian concepts of “ohana” (family) and “aloha” (love and caring).

In her “oral histories,” Saiki reveals that what the prisoners most remembered the kindness, caring and sharing not only of their fellow inmates but also of the camp guards such as Sgt. Launcelot Moran, Lt. Col. Horace Ivan Rogers and Capt. Siegfried Spillner.

These characters show the strength of humanity and the importance of “home” despite national origin or religious affiliation.

One online dictionary shows the meaning of “ganbare” as “bear up!, hold out!, keep going!, Never say die!, Come on!, Hang in there!, Go for it!”... similar to the 442nd’s “Go for Broke!”

Ganbare! -- enduring, persevering, overcoming -- is reflected in the way Japan is dealing with the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami of 2011.  It’s also a lesson learned from 1941 to help people prevent conflict and not repeat the mistakes of war.

This week Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead served as keynote speaker at the 26th Annual Federal Asian Pacific American Council (FAPAC) National Leadership Training Conference, during Asian American Pacific Islander Month. 

"We as public servants, all of us, with the trust of the American people must leverage our uniquely American advantages in diversity if we are to lead institutions poised to deliver greater peace and prosperities to the generations to come," Roughead said.

100 Years of U.S. Navy Air Power

Review by Bill Doughty

“Where are our aircraft carriers?”

It’s a question the Commander in Chief asks when facing crises, according to Kennedy, Kissinger and Clinton -- and personally attested to by former President George Herbert Walker Bush in his forward to One Hundred Years of U.S. Navy Air Power, edited by Douglas V. Smith, of the Naval War College.

The ability to project power from the sea and the agility/flexibility of patrol planes, helicopters, jets and other Navy aircraft, past and present, is celebrated in this book, published to coincide with the Centennial of Naval Aviation.

With fifteen chapters, each written by a professor, historian or strategist, the book “tells a tale rife with courage and sacrifice, dangerous experimentation and awe-inspiring innovation, tenacity and dedication,” according to Bush, Sr.

Glenn Curtiss

The development of naval aviation is shown in the context of history by Dr. Stephen Stein, who teaches at the University of Memphis.  Practical aviation started in 1783 with the first balloon flights.  Ten years later, France’s Revolutionary Army used observation balloons, although Napoleon found little use for them in his war with Britain.  
Civilians operated balloons for the Union Army in the American Civil War to sketch Confederate fortifications and artillery positions.

We see the fragile beginnings of carrier aviation with Eugene Ely’s flight in a Curtiss pusher airplane from USS Birmingham (CV-2) on Nov. 14, 1910.

When World War I began, the U.S. had less than one tenth the number of airplanes as Russia or Germany and about a fifth as many as Britain.

In Chapter 4, “Ships in the Sky,” Professor John E. Jackson writes about lighter-than-air craft and tells the story of Akron (ZRS-4), a Goodyear-Zeppelin fleet airship that demonstrated an unprecedented ability to gather intelligence.  Akron was lost in 1933 in a violent storm, with a loss of 73 of the 76 crew, including Rear Adm. William A. Moffett.

The book introduces us to other proponents of naval aviation:  Adm. Joseph Mason “Bull” Reeves, President (and former assistant secretary of the Navy) Franklin D. Roosevelt, Marine Corps 1st Lt. Alfred A. Cunningham, Coast Guard Cmdr. Frank Erickson, inventor Glenn Curtiss, Adm. Ernest J. King, Lt. John Towers, Lt. Cmdr. Henry C. Mustin and Capt. Mark Bristol and Adm. Charles Badger, along with the pantheon introduced in Revolt of the Admirals.

How did leaders deal with geographic challenges in the Pacific in WWII?  What did Adm. Reeves do to organize carrier flight deck operations?  How did fighters and patrol aircraft evolve and how was rotary wing aviation born?  Why did naval aviation succeed in Korea, Vietnam and the Middle East?  All good questions explored in One Hundred Years of U.S. Navy Air Power. 

In Chapter 13, “Naval Aviation in the Korean and Vietnam Wars,” Professor Gary J. Ohls says that strong weapons and skilled personnel are not enough to prevail in war:

“The most important lesson of Korea and of the history of warfare in general is that wars are won by adequate strategy and not tactical or operational excellence alone.  This seems to have been completely lost on America’s leaders of the 1960s.”  Knowing how to attack may not be as important as knowing whether to attack, with an understanding of the full spectrum of capabilities.

Dr. Mike Pavelec, who teaches at the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies at Maxwell Air Force Base, shows in Chapter 14 how the Navy developed a perspective of Maritime Strategy when it introduced aircraft and submarines, giving the Navy a 3D aspect in integrated abilities above, below and on the surface of the oceans, helping advance a new naval and maritime strategy.



F-14 and F\A-18 aboard USS Enterprise (CVN-65)



In “Conclusions” Douglas V. Smith returns to the question asked by U.S. presidents and advisors:  “Where are our aircraft carriers?”

Smith says it’s no accident that nearly half of American presidents since WWII -- six of 13 -- have served in uniform in the U.S. Navy:  Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter and Bush (41).

“All came to their office aware of the options afforded by, and comfortable with, the strategic and operational applications of Navy -- and particularly carrier air wing -- aviation as an instrument of national power.”

Smith concludes, “In the centennial year of U.S. Navy air power it is hoped that all Americans pause to salute those patriots who have ‘carried America’s flag into battle in pursuit of a just cause.’  They have shaped America’s history and will continue to do so in the second century of U.S. Navy air power.”

Speaking of a good cause, recently the USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76), along with various Navy patrol squadrons and helicopter squadrons and other assets, joined other U.S. military teams and the Japan Self-Defense Force to perform humanitarian relief missions in Operation Tomodachi, in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

This review only scratches the surface of what can be learned about the history, heroes and hardware in One Hundred Years of U.S. Navy Air Power, must reading for anyone interested in the topic.  This book is published by the Naval Institute Press and is available at www.usni.org.

Memorial, Senate Resolution, SOS, Recovery: CoNA

by Bill Doughty

A Marine aerial observer’s memorial service, a State Senate resolution, an ‘SOS’-in-the-sand rescue and the recovery of a downed helicopter in Kaneohe -- all in the past five days in my home state of Hawaii -- made the week especially poignant during this centennial year for naval aviation.

The memorial service for Cpl. Jonathan Faircloth of Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 363 was held April 7 at Marine Corps Base Hawaii, Kaneohe, Oahu.  He lost his life when his CH-53D Sea Stallion helicopter went down on the night of March 29.  Three other Marines were injured.

State Senator Will Espero paid tribute to Cpl. Faircloth in a speech on the Senate floor at the State Capitol April 5 during a resolution honoring the Centennial of Naval Aviation.

   Last week we experienced the tragic loss of a Kaneohe-based Marine - Corporal Jonathan D. Faircloth, crewmember of the downed CH-53D helicopter.  His memorial service will be held on April 7.  His death reminds us of the dangers faced by our military service members who put their lives at risk every day on our behalf.  Corporal Faircloth was part of the naval aviation family.  We join with our Marine Corps and Navy family in mourning his loss.

   Naval aviators - Navy and Marine Corps - have put themselves in harm's way for 100 years, training, testing, and - when called upon - fighting to defend freedom... They patrol the skies to defend us.

   Naval aviators provide humanitarian relief.  They provide support for Pacific Partnership to build peace and prevent war.  They are saving lives in Japan...

   We want to take this opportunity to recognize, in absentia, the naval aviators, including the "Skinny Dragons" of VP-4 who cannot be here today because they are participating in Operation Tomodachi, helping the people of Japan after the earthquake and tsunami there.  This is our opportunity to recognize the courage, sacrifice and support of the families of naval aviators.  Representing VP-4 is Mrs. Kathy Newlund, wife of Commanding Officer Navy Commander Steven Newlund... (Speech presented by Hawaii State Sen. Will Espero)

On the same day as Cpl. Faircloth’s memorial service, naval aviators on Kauai responded to an SOS scrawled in the sand at a remote beach off of Kalalau.  The pilots and air crewmen from both sides of the Pacific and Hawaii were training at the Pacific Missile Range Facility at Barking Sands.  

The aviators responded to a report of the SOS and saw a mirror flash.  A Helicopter Antisubmarine Squadron Light HSL-37 SH-60B "Seahawk" helicopter, piloted and crewed by Helicopter Maritime Strike (HSM) Weapons School Pacific, of NAS North Island, Calif., and HSL-51, from Naval Air Facility Atsugi, Japan rescued two women, who were brought back to PMRF for emergency treatment and transported by ambulance to Kauai Veterans Memorial Hospital.  The HSL-37 “Easy Riders” are located at Marine Corps Base Hawaii.

On the next day, April 8, back at Kaneohe, Navy divers from Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit One worked to complete the recovery of the downed CH-53D helicopter.  The Navy divers worked hand-in-hand with Marines, the Coast Guard and various civilian agencies.

The recovery was successfully completed when the last two huge segments of the downed helicopter were lifted one at a time from a sandbar in Kaneohe Bay, brought safely back to the base and gently set down.

I’m almost finished reading One Hundred Years of U.S. Navy Air Power, edited by Douglas V. Smith, published in tribute to the Centennial of Naval Aviation, one hundred years of courage and commitment, achievement and progress.  It will be the next Navy Reads review.  

Special thanks to the previous guest review posted last month during Women’s History Month by Nancy Harrity, a friend and strategic thinker who helps us understand future communication now.  Nancy headed up the public affairs for the Pacific Partnership humanitarian and civic assistance mission in 2009.  (The 2011 mission just launched and can be followed at www.cpf.navy.mil).

Future Strategic Thinking... Lambs and Lions

Guest reviews by Nancy Harrity


I remember my grade school teachers saying March roars in like a lion and goes out like a lamb about the weather. Watching the news at the beginning of this month, I truly hoped this saying would be true about world events, too. As this month comes to a close, it’s clear March will not go out like a lamb this year.

So many things happened around the world that no one saw coming – the peaceful fall of the Canadian, Egyptian, Syrian and Tunisian governments, popular uprisings in Bahrain, the United Emirates and others, a 9.1 earthquake followed by tsunami and a nuclear plant meltdown in Japan, and a coalition of allies coming together to protect the people of Libya from its leader.

The U.S. Government would find responding to the scale and number of these events to be taxing if they occurred over the course of a single year, much less over the span of six weeks or so.

How does the U.S. Government plan for the unexpected? Throw up its collective hands in defeat? Ask the old timers how they responded to similar situations? Punt? Attribute it all to 2012? These are all gut level responses. Fortunately, many government departments have teams who constantly reevaluate what we think we know, exercise creativity by thinking through the most likely and the most unlikely things to happen and build some scenarios of how to effectively respond. This process is known as scenario planning and the Department of Defense uses it extensively. While all major military exercises are designed to test the readiness of military units, they also are based on likely scenarios and help military units to prepare and test possible response before they are needed.

In Seven Deadly Scenarios: A Military Futurist Explores War in the 21st Century, Andrew F. Krepinevich, asks what is the worst that could happen, how would the U.S. respond and is it ready about seven scenarios he thinks could threaten the U.S. in the coming years. As I read this book, I could see the possibility of any of his seven scenarios coming true. Krepinevich explores the collapse of Pakistan, nuclear warheads ripping through San Antonio and Chicago, a global avian flu pandemic, Iran attacking Israel using Syria, Lebanon and Hezbollah as proxies, a Chinese blockade of Taiwan, a mass disruption of the global supply chain, and an Iraqi chaos following the withdrawal of U.S. troops. For all of his meticulously written scenarios, Krepinevich didn’t even begin to hint at the reality of the worst of what the world is facing today. Yet, that doesn’t mean his advice to American leadership isn’t valid.

Krepinevich sees the value in a stronger strategic planning process for the National Security Council. With this recommendation and all of his others that stem from it, Krepinevich hits the crux of the problem the U.S. finds itself in with all of these events – a lack of a coordinated, cohesive strategy to respond to events abroad equally.

Developing and consistently applying a coordinated, cohesive foreign policy strategy also is the theme of Leslie H. Gelb’s Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy. Gelb, a longtime fixture in America’s foreign policy scene, examines what power is and is not, rules for exercising power, how policy enhances or detracts from a nation’s power and changes the U.S. Government can make to restore America’s footing on the world stage.

As anyone who as completed a course on military strategy or joint professional military education was taught, the military is but one part of a nation’s power, with diplomacy, intelligence and economics being the other components of the DIME. Gelb takes this paradigm a few steps further, explaining how strategy and power are intertwined with the ability to set the world stage and the strength of intelligence,
U.S. domestic policies, military and the economy all playing a role.


With the U.S. supporting a no-fly zone in Libya, yet not supporting the rebellions in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, many Americans are trying to figure out where the commonsense and consistency is in U.S. foreign policy strategy today. They looked for it in President Obama’s March 28th address to the nation, where he provided a glimmer:

“There will be times, though, when our safety is not directly threatened, but our interests and our values are. Sometimes, the course of history poses challenges that threaten our common humanity and our common security -– responding to natural disasters, for example; or preventing genocide and keeping the peace; ensuring regional security, and maintaining the flow of commerce. These may not be America’s problems alone, but they are important to us. They’re problems worth solving. And in these circumstances, we know that the United States, as the world’s most powerful nation, will often be called upon to help.”

Let us all hope the government can build on this foundation and that April showers do bring the May flowers our grade school teachers promised – the U.S. military, the U.S. Government and the world could use the break.


Editor’s Note: Nancy Harrity is currently enjoying a career sabbatical after 20 years of naval service.

'Wired For War' Author Peter Singer to Kick Off Winter Lecture Series at ONR

By Geoff S. Fein, Office of Naval Research

Peter W. Singer, author of Wired For War

ARLINGTON, Va. (NNS) -- The Office of Naval Research (ONR) announced that Dr. Peter Warren Singer, author, senior fellow and director of the 21st Century Defense Initiative at the Brookings Institution, will speak on the science fiction and science reality of war in the 21st century, from 2 to 3:30 p.m. March 8 at ONR.

The event kicks off ONR's Directorate of Innovation Winter 2010-2011 Distinguished Lecture Series.

Singer, author of the 2009 best-seller "Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century," is considered one of the world's leading experts on changes in 21st-century warfare. He was named by the president to the Joint Forces Command's Transformation Advisory Group. Besides having written for a variety of publications and journals, Singer has also penned books on children at war and the privatization of war.

"Singer highlights the challenge ahead for the military: the technologists are advancing the state of the art at an ever-increasing pace, yet the doctrine and policies for use are lagging," said ONR's Director of Innovation Dr. Lawrence Schuette. "Lectures, such as Peter Singer's, are critical to the discussion, as it will bring a mix of technologists, operators and policy-makers together."

Questions about the event should be directed to Melody Cook at melody.cook.ctr@navy.mil or (703) 696-2924.

The Crisis of Islam

Review by Bill Doughty

Osama bin Laden is violently against the separation of church and state, which he sees as America’s greatest sin.

Author Bernard Lewis

That’s one revelation from Bernard Lewis in his eye-opening The Crisis of Islam - Holy War and Unholy Terror.  Lewis gets to the core of understanding fundamentalist extremism.

For bin Laden and his followers, Islam is not just a private religious belief but also a cultural identity.  

Not just another way of life, fundamentalist Islam is the only allowable way of life, say the extremists.

“The literal divinity and inerrancy of the Qur’an (Koran) is a basic dogma of Islam, and although some may doubt it, none challenge it,” writes Lewis, Princeton University Professor of Near Eastern Studies Emeritus.

Explaining fundamentalism in the Muslim world, Lewis says, “Most Muslims are not fundamentalists, and most fundamentalists are not terrorists, but most present-day terrorists are Muslims and proudly identify themselves as such.”

He recommends, “In devising means to fight the terrorists, it would surely be useful to understand the forces that drive them.”

At the Heart of Intolerance

Lewis’s book, on the Navy’s Professional Reading Program list, is a springboard to learn more about the history of the Middle East and what caused the intense feelings of persecution, anger, hate and violence.

What was the impact of Western sea-based discovery and commerce five centuries ago?  How did the loss of the Ottoman empire affect the psyche of believers?  Why did most followers of Muhammad turn their backs on the enlightenment and all it represents in freedom, tolerance, scientific logic, and human rights for both men and women?

The terror-inflaming strain of Islam behind bin Laden, Wahhabism, encourages secular book burning, says Lewis.  “The burning of books was often accompanied by the summary execution of those who wrote, copied or taught them.”

Author Ayaan Hirsi Ali

One author whom Islamist fundamentalists abhor is Somali expatriate Ayaan Hirsi Ali.  Ali’s Infidel, her personal story of confrontation with fundamentalism and journey to freedom, is a good companion piece to Crisis of Islam.  For Ali, the crisis of Islam is tyranny over freedom.

She writes, “By declaring our prophet infallible and not permitting ourselves to question him, we Muslims had set up a static tyranny.  The Prophet Muhammad attempted to legislate every aspect of life.  By adhering to his rules of what is permitted and what is forbidden, we Muslims suppressed the freedom to think for ourselves and to act as we chose.  We froze the moral outlook of billions of people into the mindset of the Arab desert in the seventh century.  We were not just servants of Allah, we were slaves.”

In the desert in 632 CE, Muhammad supposedly told followers in his farewell address, “I was ordered to fight all men until they say, ‘There is no god by Allah.’”  It’s a quote restated by bin Laden to justify his vision and actions in attacks against embassies, the USS Cole, and the World Trade Center and Pentagon on 9/11.

‘On Vacation from History’

Lewis shows that it’s no coincidence that the most tolerant, least fundamentalist cultures are those with the highest education levels.

As Lewis points out, Muslim countries rank low in national performance indicators, including GDP, industrial output, life expectancy, number of phones and computers per 100 people, and -- especially -- the number of books sold.  Lewis says of the top 27 countries in the human development index, from the U.S. (#1) to Vietnam (#27) not a single nation is a Muslim country.

Can Islam as a religion be embraced by followers as a matter of faith and practice rather than an identity and loyalty transcending all others?  That, according to Lewis, is the “crisis of Islam.”  

Last Sunday on Meet the Press, another expert on the Middle East, author Thomas Friedman said he hopes for a peaceful transition in Egypt, but noted, “Egypt, and really most of the Arab world has been on a vacation from history for the last 50 years.”

Friedman, Ali and Lewis frame the issue in similar ways:  Can Islamic groups move beyond medieval authoritarianism and cultural stagnation and embrace freedom and democracy?

According to Lewis, “If the fundamentalists are correct in their calculation and succeed in their war, then a darker future awaits the world, especially the part of it that embraces Islam.”

On the other hand, it’s clear that a new generation of young people is emerging in a globalized world connected by social media, peacefully demanding freedom and democracy in previously autocratic societies.  Can they see past the past and find common human values as inalienable rights?

President Barack Obama spoke to the young people in the Middle East on June 4, 2009 at Cairo University in Egypt:

“I know there are many -- Muslim and non-Muslim -- who question whether we can forge this new beginning.  Some are eager to stoke the flames of division, and to stand in the way of progress.  Some suggest that it isn't worth the effort -- that we are fated to disagree, and civilizations are doomed to clash. Many more are simply skeptical that real change can occur.  There's so much fear, so much mistrust that has built up over the years.  But if we choose to be bound by the past, we will never move forward.  And I want to particularly say this to young people of every faith, in every country -- you, more than anyone, have the ability to reimagine the world, to remake this world.

“All of us share this world for but a brief moment in time. The question is whether we spend that time focused on what pushes us apart, or whether we commit ourselves to an effort -- a sustained effort -- to find common ground, to focus on the future we seek for our children, and to respect the dignity of all human beings.

“It's easier to start wars than to end them.  It's easier to blame others than to look inward.  It's easier to see what is different about someone than to find the things we share.  But we should choose the right path, not just the easy path.  There's one rule that lies at the heart of every religion -- that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us.  This truth transcends nations and peoples -- a belief that isn't new; that isn't black or white or brown; that isn't Christian or Muslim or Jew.  It's a belief that pulsed in the cradle of civilization, and that still beats in the hearts of billions around the world.  It's a faith in other people, and it's what brought me here today.”

What about bin Laden’s faith in people and respect for law and government?  

With contempt for the human, secular values of independence and free-thinking, bin Laden said in his Letter to America from 2002 that the worst of all of our sins is the separation of church and state:  “You are the nation who, rather than ruling with the Shariah of Allah in its constitution and laws, choose(s) to invest your own laws as you will and devise your separate religion from your policies, contradicting the pure nature which affirms absolute authority to the Lord and your Creator.”

Lewis argues that the solution to defeating Islamic terrorism starts with understanding its historical roots and the narrow view of its purveyors.  The next step is for good people with moderate, tolerant views -- people like Ayaan Hirsi Ali -- to step into the spotlight and condemn extremism. 

As always, education is key to achieving progress and helping people discover they have freedom of choice.

A Common Thread

On the centennial of President Ronald Reagan’s birth tomorrow and in light of the continuing turmoil in the Middle East, it’s timely to remember Reagan’s tribute to late President of Egypt Anwar Sadat, assassinated by Islamist fundamentalists on Oct. 6, 1981.  (Nobel Peace Prize recipient Sadat tried to make peace with Israel, brought together by President Jimmy Carter at Camp David in 1976.)

Presidents Sadat and Reagan in 1981

“President Sadat was a courageous man whose vision and wisdom brought nations and people together. In a world filled with hatred, he was a man of hope. In a world trapped in the animosities of the past, he was a man of foresight, a man who sought to improve a world tormented by malice and pettiness,” Reagan said in his tribute address.

Sadat was murdered by Islamic Jihad, a group associated with the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Gamaa al-Islamiyya, who accused Sadat of apostasy and condemned him for the peace treaty he’d signed with Israel. 

That group was tied to al-Qaeda in the 1990s.

Among the Al Gamaa al-Islamiyya’s leaders: Ayman al-Zawahiri, founder of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, proponent of Wahhabism, and, as al-Qaeda’s Number 2, deputy to bin Laden. 

Roots/Routes to Choose: ‘The Other Wes Moore’

Review by Bill Doughty

Considered by many as one of the best U.S. nonfiction books of the past year, The Other Wes Moore is a story of choice.  Two men share the same name and neighborhood, same options.  One chooses education, service and freedom; the other falls into drugs, violence and life in prison.

What gave author Wes Moore an awareness of his freedom of choice?

At least one answer: books.

Author Moore’s enjoyment of reading and study was ignited in high school by a book about sports, a book that led to other inspiring works.

Posted here, with the permission of the publisher:

My mother, sensing my apathy toward reading, had bought me the Mitch Albom book Fab Five.  The book is about the Michigan basketball team led by Chris Webber, Jalen Rose, and Juwan Howard, a team with five freshman starters who made it all the way to the national championship game.  The Fab Five sported baggy shorts, bald heads, and a swagger I recognized from the streets of the Bronx, all reflective of the way the hip-hop generation was changing the face of sports, and college basketball in particular.  I was riveted by that book.  The characters jumped off the page, and I felt myself as engulfed in their destiny as I was in my own.  I finished Fab Five in two days.  The book itself wasn’t what was important -- in retrospect, I see that it was a great read but hardly a work of great literature -- but my mother used it as a hook into a deeper lesson: that the written word isn’t necessarily a chore but can be a window into new worlds.

From there I leaped into every new book with fervor.  My fresh love of reading brought me to the transformational writers who have worked their magic on generations of readers.  I explored Spain with Paulo Coelho.  I listened to jazz on the North Shore of Long Island with F. Scott Fitzgerald.  I was reminded by Walt Whitman to think of the past, and I awaited “The Fire Next Time” with James Baldwin.  But there was a more recent author and public figure whose work spoke to the core of a new set of issues I was struggling with: the Bronx’s own Colin Powell.  His book, My American Journey, helped me harmonize my understanding of America’s history and my aspiration to serve in her uniform.  In his autobiography he talked about going to the Woolworth’s in Columbus, Georgia, and being able to shop but not eat there.  He talked about how black GIs during World War II had more freedoms when stationed in Germany than back in the country they fought for.  But he embraced the progress this nation made and the military’s role in helping that change to come about.  Colin Powell could have been justifiably angry, but he wasn’t.  He was thankful.  I read and reread one section in particular:  “The Army was living the democratic ideal ahead of the rest of America.  Beginning in the late fifties, less discrimination, a truer merit system, and leveler playing fields existed inside the gates of our military posts more than in any Southern city hall or Northern corporation.  The Army, therefore, made it easier for me to love my country, with all its flaws, and to serve her with all my heart.”

The canon of black autobiography sensibly includes scores of books about resistance to the American system.  For instance, reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X -- a book that begins and ends in the madness and pathology of America’s racial obsessions -- is a rite of passage for young black men.  Malcolm never stopped pursuing truth and the right course, based on the best information he had at any given moment.  His response to the world he confronted in the middle of the twentieth century was profound and deeply felt, but he didn’t speak to my experience as well as Colin Powell did.  Powell, in his pragmatic way, wanted what I wanted:  A fair shot.  A place to develop himself.  A code that would instill discipline, restrain passion, and order his steps.  A way to change the world without first unleashing the whirlwind.  In the chaos of the world I grew up in, those were as appealing to me as Malcolm’s cry for revolution was to his generation.  I don’t claim that Powell had it all figured out:  American history bedevils the most earnest attempts to make sense of it.  And, of course, the problems of race that Malcolm confronted have not disappeared by any means.  But Powell gave me another way to think about the American dilemma and, more than that, another way to think about my own life.

Excerpted from The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore Copyright C 2010 by Wes Moore. Excerpted by permission of Random House Group, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Wes Moore chose service in the U.S. military, became an Army paratrooper and served in combat in Afghanistan. He became a Rhodes Scholar like former President Bill Clinton and worked as a special assistant to Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice as a White House Fellow. The other Wes Moore portrayed in this book chose a different path toward hate, murder of a police officer in Philadelphia and a sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole.

Tavis Smiley endorses Moore’s book with a “call to action” following the epilogue:  “My call to action, our call to action, is this: read these words but, more important, absorb their meanings and create your own plan to act and leave a legacy.”

Smiley spotlights the central message of The Other Wes Moore: “The choices we make about the lives we live determine the kinds of legacies we leave.” 

This weekend Americans contemplate the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his commitment toward nonviolence, civility and justice for all. Here’s what King said in his Letter from Birmingham Jail in 1963:

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.  We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.  Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.  -- MLK

As the world becomes even more connected and humanity more threatened with senseless acts of violence (as in Tucson last weekend), King’s observation provides inspiration and hope.  

So does The Other Wes Moore.