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  • One Bullet Away

  • The Making of Marine Officer
  • By: Nathaniel Fick
  • Narrated by: Nathaniel Fick
  • Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
  • 4.8 out of 5 stars (52 ratings)

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One Bullet Away cover art

One Bullet Away

By: Nathaniel Fick
Narrated by: Nathaniel Fick
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Publisher's Summary

A former captain in the Marines' First Recon Battalion, who fought in Afghanistan and Iraq, reveals how the Corps trains its elite and offers a point-blank account of twenty-first-century battle.

If the Marines are "the few, the proud", Recon Marines are the fewest and the proudest. Only one Marine in a hundred qualifies for Recon, charged with working clandestinely, often behind enemy lines. Fick's training begins with a hellish summer at Quantico, after his junior year at Dartmouth, and advances to the pinnacle, Recon, four years later, on the eve of war with Iraq. Along the way, he learns to shoot a man a mile away, stays awake for 72 hours straight, endures interrogation and torture at the secretive SERE course, learns to swim with Navy SEALs, masters the Eleven Principles of Leadership, and much more.

His vast skill set puts him in front of the front lines, leading 22 Marines into the deadliest conflict since Vietnam. He vows he will bring all his men home safely, and to do so he'll need more than his top-flight education. He'll need luck and an increasingly clear vision of the limitations of his superiors and the missions they assign him.

Fick unveils the process that makes Marine officers such legendary leaders and shares his hard-won insights into the differences between the military ideals he learned and military practice, which can mock those ideals. One Bullet Away never shrinks from blunt truths, but it is an ultimately inspiring account of mastering the art of war.

©2005 Nathaniel Fick (P)2005 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved. AUDIOWORKS is an imprint of Simon & Schuster Audio Division.

Critic Reviews

"Candid and fast-paced....Like the best combat memoirs, Fick's focuses on the men doing the fighting and avoids...sensationalism." (Publishers Weekly)

What listeners say about One Bullet Away

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Abridged version!

Very well told and narrated account by Nathaniel Fick, however it would have been nice to know that this is an abridged version - only at the very end of the audiobook is there any mention of it being abridged.

I've since purchased a hard copy so that I can read the full account.

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Great perspective

Great to hear this perspective from a Marine Officer in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

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Great first hand narrative of the Iraq Invasion.

It was wonderful to have the author tell his story and give insight into life in the US Marine Corps.

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Bravo Zulu

Thankyou for sharing your story. candid and reflective account from an JO's perspective. truly inspiring.

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