Book: The Heart and the Fist by Eric Greitens

The Education of a Humanitarian, the Making of a Navy Seal.

Eric grew up an all-American boy in St. Louis, Missouri, eventually went to Duke University, was a Rhodes scholar, a boxing champion and then became a Navy SEAL. He was awarded the Purple Heart and a Bronze Star. He served in Afghanistan, Irag, Southeast Asia, the Philippines and Kenya.

Before his military career, Eric spent time doing humanitarian work in India, Rwanda, Albania, Cambodia, Bolivia, Mexico and Croatia. He truly became an "officer and a gentleman" as he matured and tested himself, excelling in the incredibly rigorous SEAL training (which he describes in some detail) but also refusing to believe that might makes right.

Through his experiences as a soldier and as a single human trying in small ways to help others, he works at understanding and respecting different people and cultures. While at Oxford, he "really began to appreciate all of life's beauty: joy, delight, rest, love, tranquillity, peace.These are things worth fighting for, for others and for ourselves."

While reading his narrative, the necessity of using force at times seems less debatable and a more complex issue than many of us would like. Eric writes from seeing the street children of Bolivia who sniff glue all day, the dying in Varanasi, those displaced after the Rwandan massacres in which close to 1 million were killed in the civil war in that country. One MILLION! Eric notes that "Romeo Dallaire, the UN commander in Rwanda, estimated that with just 5000 well-equipped troops, we could have saved 800,000 people." But we didn't do enough to stop the genocide as Bill Clinton acknowledged four years later.

Are the questions of when and where and how to use our military easy? Of course not. The debate continues every day. Earth is the one planet on which we humans live and we are neighbors. I think Eric knows that fighting is sometimes the only alternative and that we must be strong when war is inevitable. But perhaps the old parable of the sun versus the wind should more often be our modus operandi. He was a proud Navy SEAL, proud of his fellows soldiers but always pushing for peaceful ways, non violent ways to provide "healthy and productive" lives wherever people are suffering, both here and outside of the US.

Of course, this is idealistic, and he does not discuss issues surrounding the glut and dearth of oil in the world's countries and how that engages our military. He does not address America's sense of superiority in the increasingly globalized world of today, or our lack of interest in cultures other than our own, our refusal and reluctance to see ourselves as anything but the top dog. He gently chastises our leaders and policies but works within that system, doing what he can.

Eric founded The Mission Continues, an organization that aids "wounded and disabled warriors to serve their country again as citizen leaders here at home."

Tom Brokaw calls Eric his "hero" reiterating that the "heart and fist are just the combination we need."

There is war and there are the men and women who fight those wars. Would that more of them were like Eric Greitens, good and strong.