05/31/2021
Lang’s sweeping memoir surveys the author’s life as a soldier, officer, and intelligence official, telling not just the story of Lang’s service and family but offering a close-up history of the U.S. military’s global engagements in the fractious second half to the 20th century. Born into a family of soldiers, Lang talked his way into enlisting with the Maine National Guard at just 16 and then enrolled, after high school, in the Virginia Military Institute. Even before joining the Army’s 5th Infantry division after graduation, Lang had distinguished himself as a speaker, marksman, tactician, and expert in languages and military history, talents that would serve him well in Panama, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, and other posts in a career that would take him to the position of the DIA’s Defense Intelligence Officer for the Middle East and South Asia.
Tattoo overflows with revealing–sometimes harrowing–stories of military life. War games in training, conflicts with commanding officers, the fascinating early days of Army Special Forces, the horrors of Vietnam: Lang covers this and more in clear-eyed, scene-driven prose unencumbered by romance or overstatement. He refers to himself in the third person, but his command of the language ensures feeling (sometimes even humor) suffuses every page: “After watching Lang shoot, asked how Lang felt about shooting individuals. The reply was that this would depend on who they were.”
It resonates deeply, then, when Lang does indulge emotion, express doubt about a mission, or set the record straight. One impassioned clarification: The U.S. did not furnish Iraq with military materials during its 1980s war with Iran. Don’t expect much in the way of guidance of where this life is going or a précis of lessons learned in the manner of many contemporary memoirs. Still, with a scrupulous eye for detail, Tattoo illuminates every international conflict Lang saw and offers a fascinating portrait of what soldiering means.
Takeaway: An incisive and revealing survey of the career of an American soldier, from Vietnam to the Middle East.
Great for fans of: Richard E. Mack’s Memoirs of a Cold War Soldier, Elliot Ackerman’s Places and Names.
Production grades Cover: B Design and typography: A Illustrations: A Editing: A Marketing copy: B+
2021-02-22
Lang recounts a memorable career in the Army—as eventful as it was accomplished.
Lang was born with an impressive military pedigree—his uncle John Lang was famous for his career in the Navy, awarded, among other decorations, the prestigious Navy Cross twice. And his father, Walter Sr., served 32 years in the Army. When the author was just shy of 16, he joined the Maine Army National Guard—he was technically too young to enlist, but his father falsified his birth records, starting Lang on a long and extraordinarily successful career. Lang was drawn to the soldier’s life he “sampled” in the National Guard, and after enduring the challenges of the Virginia Military Institute, he was commissioned in the Army in 1962 as an infantry officer. Lang would serve as a special forces soldier before becoming an intelligence officer in Vietnam during the war, where he also assumed a “night job” as a sniper for the CIA. He was a language instructor at the United States Military Academy at West Point—he was capable of teaching Arabic, Spanish, and French. Lang became widely known as an expert on the Middle East and was the defense intelligence officer for the Middle East and South Asia for eight years before becoming a director of the Defense HUMINT Service. The author’s military achievements are impressive; he was eventually awarded the Presidential Rank of Distinguished Executive, something comparable to British knighthood. Lang lucidly and straightforwardly chronicles his remarkable life, sharing his considerable expertise on a wide range of subjects, most notably the American invasion of Iraq. Even if Lang’s memoir wasn’t well-written (and it is), it would be fascinating; his experiences are the kind that don’t require much literary embellishment. However, he makes a peculiar authorial decision to write his memoirs as a third-person narrative, which one might speculate was motivated to provide distance from himself to more comfortably dispense self-praise and blame—he does both liberally. Lang clearly and even movingly loves military life. After a key battle in Vietnam, he reflects on the sad reality of the surviving soldier’s lot: “Lang did not know it at the time, but the central point of his life had passed that night. His father had said that an unfortunate by-product of a fighting soldier’s life was that the logical climax of existence would come before you were through living.” Likewise, while Lang enjoyed a successful career in the private sector following his retirement, he has little to say about it and dismissively refers to the “meaningless, pointless existence called civilian life.” Many will find some of Lang’s reminiscences offensive—he doesn’t hesitate to concede that he “never particularly liked the Arabs, their culture or language.” Also, every memoir is motivated by some measure of self-aggrandizement, and one could argue that Lang’s has more than its fair share. In fairness to the author, it would be difficult to modestly document a professional life so spangled with accolades.
A captivating tale of military life—dramatic and astute, with a side of anti-Arab prejudice.
