preview

Analysis of Fictional Book Black Hearts by Jim Frederick Essay examples

Decent Essays

“S*** rolls downward” an old army phrase is what exactly happened to 1st platoon of the 101st Airborne Division. Black Hearts is a fictional book on soldiers in the 101st Airborne division in the 502 Infantry Regiment during deployment to Iraq in 2005. Black Hearts is a book which gives the reader the point of views the different types of stress a soldier goes through during a deployment both physically and especially mentally. The book goes in depth and paints realistic events throughout the deployment and the impact it had one specific company. In 2005, the Iraqi war was one of the worst times to be in Iraq for the United States Military. The number of IEDS have increased and become more dangerous as the Iraqi insurgents started to …show more content…

“His large, shiny hairless dome earned him the unit appropriate nickname the bald eagle.” LTC was harsh and sometimes demoralizing to the leaders under him and the leadership did affect his subordinates under him. He was incompetent of the company commanders was after them every chance he had. His leadership style tends to put a lot of stress on his company commanders and the COs feared Kunk forcing them to be timid. “Kunk had reputation for being demanding and having a volcanic temper”. This put a lot of stress on the company commander which shows throughout the book. From the battalion level to the company level the leadership from the top started to makes its way the individual squad members. As 1st platoon continue to have their struggles with the leadership they begin to also have them with the battlefield. The constant stress from the leadership began to build up and continued to build up with the environment they were set in. A lot of the company commanders became passive leader not knowing what to or did not want to do anything that would get on LTC Kunk’s bad side. CPT good did show signs of stress in some of his decision making one in particular cost him the lives of his men. The platoon leader of first platoon LT Britt was an enthusiastic leader who everyone in his platoon respected but later feared for his life before dying to IED. The platoon sergeant seemed to take everything well even with the lack of sleep and supply. The squad leaders

Get Access