Patriotic Dissent: America in the Age of Endless War Hardcover – September 8, 2020

The author is a West Point graduate who retired as a major in 2019 after nearly 14 years on active duty in the U.S. Army, including wartime tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Consider this little book," he writes, "one obscure combat veteran's clarion call, a desperate plea for his peers and the citizenry writ large to reframe their conceptions of dissent as patriotism and take action!"To Danny Sjursen, construing patriotism as love of country is "potentially dangerous," particularly since "Americans today live in an age of vapid overadulation of their soldiers. Without prompt and widespread citizen action, this cult of vacuous patriotism constitutes, slowly but surely, an existential threat for the health of the republic." Noting that "for decades and now more than ever, poll after poll has established that the only public institution that large majorities of Americans trust is the US military," Sjursen deplores, "This simply isn't healthy—not for a democratic republic, at least." Only by redefining "dissent, against empire and endless war, as the truest form of patriotism" can we save ourselves."Make no mistake: this is nothing less than a call to arms," exhorts the erstwhile platoon commander and troop executive officer. "But in this war, our weapons will be our pens, laptops, and booming voices. It may just be the most valuable service a generation of dismayed veterans will have ever rendered to the nation and Constitution they love and swore to protect."Following overseas duty, Sjursen was assigned to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where military dissenter Chelsea Manning was then incarcerated. She is conspicuously absent from this book. Sjursen does include his friend, retired Lieutenant Colonel Danny Davis, who "deployed four times—twice each to Iraq and Afghanistan—during a twenty-one-year career and then famously blew the whistle on the absurdity of the Afghan War upon his return from his final tour in 2012." This choice is instructive, since the contrast between Davis and Manning could not be more stark. Davis engaged in active-duty military whistleblowing through channels, including briefing members of Congress and submitting critical reports to the Defense Department's inspector general. Manning spurned the Military Whistleblower Protection Act, instead dumping her 734,885 stolen U.S. military and diplomatic files on WikiLeaks for direct-to-media exposé. It's telling that, despite blogging in June 2019 that "as a soldier I'm glad" Chelsea Manning broke the law, when it came time to brand patriotic dissent in book form, Sjursen drew the line. Lawbreaking is apparently not part of the image Sjursen seeks to project.I don't doubt the author's sincerity, but this slim volume—comprising disjointed fragments of memoir, history, and entreaty—doesn't quite decide what it wants to be. It never came alive for me, and Amazon's hype of it as " incendiary" is downright silly. I can't imagine anyone being inspired by such lackluster prose about a topic of marginal interest to the general public. What Sjursen touts as nothing less than a call to arms is more like a weak reveille that will wake no one up.

If you ever feel conflicted about wanting to support American troops, yet also not wanting illogical, endless wars, read this book. Maj Sjursen does an excellent job of distilling some difficult concepts into a clear-eyed, articulate argument for why the current, socially-accepted concept of patriotism might need to evolve. Being both a combat officer, and a West Point professor of history, he not only gives the reader a "boots on the ground" perspective of unchecked militarism gone too far, but also provides historical examples of people who were truly patriotic through challenging their government's actions rather than blindly accepting them. The world is only getting more complex, and it is time for everyone to start thinking more deeply about the things we accept, and fight against. When it comes to American war and foreign policy, this is a great book read and consider for deeper insight.

An excellent overview by an author who has truly "been there, done that!" Thoughtful, insightful, and very revealing. Highly recommended.

This book, I'll admit, was hard to read. Not because of any difficulty in navigating the prose - that is one of the book's biggest strengths (it is incredibly well written, often poetic, and as smooth as silk in its flow) - but because so much of the book strikes an uncomfortable nerve (more on that below).Moreover, it forces the reader to come face to face with hard, difficult realities that frequently clashes with our understanding of what it means to be a patriotic American. One of the biggest, almost automatic things we think of when considering reasonable expressions of patriotism, we think it means flying the flag on our homes or cars, believing the words, "my country, right or wrong," and in lauding all uniformed service members as "heroes." What to make, then, of a book about dissent written by a man who was a graduate of the famed West Point, who was a cavalry officer in the heat of combat in both Iraq and Afghanistan, winner of the Bronze Star Medal with "V" device for gallantry under enemy fire, and as intellectual as they come?There is actually no conflict at all. The experiences he describes in this book about what he saw and experienced in combat is very close to what I also observed. Most every American trooper loves their country and loves their fellow Americans or they'd never risk their lives for the security of both. Yet what is the proper response for those service members when the observe, first hand, that the ideals we espouse publicly as a nation are often in direct conflict with what actually happens overseas?You may not always agree with Danny's conclusions, but I think our country's citizenry is in desperate need of addressing, head on, the hard questions Danny poses in this book. To continue turning a blind eye, could, inadvertently, result in us "patriotically" being part of a problem (self-destructive and unnecessary forever-wars) that ultimately harms us all.

I finished reading this book this past weekend. It's a very educational/informational book with great insights on patriotism and the twists that mostly unwise politicians put on it in order to get elected or re-elected. For my comrade-in-arms, vets, I'd definitely recommend this book. Reading this book will relieve many pressures and undue pressures on you. The books makes you understand who the real patriots are and who the fake ones are. It does this by showing you the way not by pointing out individuals. It explains the reasoning behind some of the unjust wars and how they came to become unending and/or unjust wars.This book helped me to realize my place in all of the foreign policy BS that's going on between Uncle Sam and the rest of the world. It showed me where I have been standing and where I stand currently when it comes to supporting the country I love most.

Reality can be uncomfortable for those who refuse to wake up. Well done, Major Sjursen.