Review of All Secure by Tom Satterly


 

All Secure by Tom Satterly 

c2019, 310 Pages

The book tells the story of Tom Sattery who spent 20 years in the military, most as a highly skilled operative with " the Unit " a short hand version of  1st Special Forces Operational Detachment  - Delta or commonly known as Delta Force. This guy was a badass, a true warrior in every sense of the word.  The Ninja warrior of the modern age. The book chronicles his story of joining, training, moving up in rank, getting selected for Delta and his mission. Oh so many missions that he says he lost count. 
I won't go into details for the sake of time but he relays a number of them they begin to blur together. He was involved in the famous Black Hawk Down scenario in Mogadishu and was one of the teams searching for Saddam Hussein.  If you can imagine Delta force, war stories, this guy lived it. 
And he killed..and killed some more. 
The book lays out the issue with killing and as Col. Dave Grossman point out, killing is not something that occurs naturally to people. We actually don't like to do it and putting someone in the position, under stress for years does something to the human psyche. It creates psychic terminates that eats at the foundation of stability and civilized normality replacing it with rage, nightmares, addictive behaviors and PTS.  Satterly, although embarrassed and humilitated by bad behavior shares with the reader all the bad behaviors that led him to the lower point of suicide. And then things began to change....little by little, revelation and understanding, help by people strong enough to stand by him. 
On page 243, the author starts to describe what it's like with "Let me paint a picture. Tell me what you see." The next 6 pages is an incredible ' picture' of what it's like being at that level of experiences, "Imagine living in fear, under relentless stress and anxiety, a constant state of adrenaline fueled, heightened awareness for 90 day stretches' at a time. You get yourself, amped up 10, maybe more, times a day on death metal rock and roll and a caffeine and pill induced rage.  "
The story has a positive outcome, someone using tragedy and bad stuff in their life to create something greater than they are. It is like the rape victim creating something helps other rape victims.  In partnership with his fourth wife, the created a non-profit to help those special unit operators dealing with the fallout of combat. 
Called the All Secure Foundation, it fills a niche that other agencies and non-profits supporting veterans don't. 
Overall, I liked the book. The actions scenes were good, well written. He communicates well the frustration and despair he felt but the one thing I felt was lacking was insight into his transformation.  What psychological light bulbs went off, what " Ah-ha" moments did he have, what enlightenment points did he have? Someone that entrenched in warrior culture would have to have some serious changes of mindset. Did he wrestle with the nutrition ? Meditation ? Did he every think, this shits for weaklings ? Even though he felt like a loser, did he ever come to realize he's got more courage than most even more so admitting his struggles ? The book never really tells about the positive attitude changes from this to that. 
Good book, highly recommend for those that like to read.  

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