The Rise and Fall of Major Jim Gant (Updated: Now a Book Review Twofer)
The Rise and Fall of Major Jim Gant by Joseph Collins, War on the Rocks Book Review
Whether you are interested in an unusual love story or in how the United States fights protracted wars, Ann Scott Tyson’s American Spartan is an important book. It artfully tells the story of the author and her now-husband, Major Jim Gant, a tough warrior-hero-thinker, who not only was one of the authors of the theory of Village Stability Operations in Afghanistan but became a pioneer practitioner, living among the Afghans in Konar Province for nearly two years. In the end, the Taliban tried very hard to kill him, and none other than Osama bin Laden identified Gant and his 2009 article, “One Tribe at a Time,” as a threat to the global jihad, at least according to the author. In the estimation of General David Petraeus and others, Major Jim Gant was the “perfect counterinsurgent.”
Major Gant, however, was also a psychologically wounded warrior and not fit for combat. A multi-tour combat veteran, he had severe and apparently untreated PTSD before his final deployment, the result of too much close combat on previous tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. How long can one ride on the hood of a Humvee, drawing sniper fire and scouting for and finding IEDs? He was well into drug and alcohol dependence before he deployed. His condition became worse as his tour progressed. Indeed, he increasingly became the centerpiece of battles against his twin demons: the Taliban and his superior officers. His attitude about war and warfare went off the deep end, and he imagined himself a reincarnated Spartan…
‘American Spartan’: Book Review by Gary Anderson, Washington Times
… I greatly admire anyone who can accomplish a dangerous mission without getting his people killed. In this, Maj. Gant performed brilliantly. His Village Stability Operations efforts harkened back to the original roots of the Green Berets by living with and fighting side by side with the Afghan tribesmen, particularly their “malik” (leader).
Maj. Gant appeared to be on his way to great things in the special operations community, but somewhere along the way, things were going badly off the track. A combination of years of combat stress and probably traumatic brain injury had caused him to lose his moral compass…
