Of the many special warfare memoirs I have read No Hero is the very best in terms of instructional value for the aspiring warrior, and for readers interested in the rites of martial passage. Structurally this book is somewhat similar to Steven Pressfield’s novel Virtues of War The Sarissa's Song about Alexander the Great.

The story is about a much humbler warrior who fought over much of the same ground as that ancient conqueror. No Hero begins with Mark’s ode to the forty names of fallen comrades on his cell phone contact list that shall never be called again. He goes on to cover the following concepts from a training and combat perspective, giving anecdotes from combat and training throughout:

1. Purpose

2. Confidence

3. Fear

4. Stress

5. Mind-set

6. Trust

7. Communication

8. Relationship

9. Accountability

10. Discomfort

11. Evolution

12. Compartmentalization

The best training story has to be about going up against Flipper the Killer Dolphin in an Alaskan harbor during a war game, followed by Mark’s quest to banish his fear of heights at Rock Canyon Nevada and on jumps made with 220 pounds worth of gear.

All of the combat accounts are gripping and related matter-of-factly to make for easy and compelling reading.

Ghost writer Kevin Maurer is nigh invisible; using a minimalistic style in helping Mark immerse the reader in the blooming mindset of the postmodern warrior. Marks’ experiences working as the replacement SEAL on DELTA force army teams who served as ‘Baghdad SWAT' in Iraq, and trying to mesh with the buffoon-like ranger leadership in Afghanistan—well documented in the ranger memoir The Reaper, reviewed here ‘A Heat That Georgia Can’t Bring’—paints a picture of a hopeless task given to our best men, and rendered incomprehensibly difficult by ‘armchair quarterbacks.’

What I really enjoyed—in a curmudgeonly way—was the Three Stooges approach to fighting the Taliban toward the end of the U.S. effort in Afghanistan. Did you know that Spec Ops strike forces, necessarily vulnerable due to their necessarily small size and light equipment [the only people with a chance of hurting the enemy in an unconventional war zone], had to be accompanied by political officers? Does having to answer to a BSO [Battle Space Owner] while being issued orders from a distant unseen colonel based on intelligence provided by nerds looking at satellite and drone images, sound a little like Soviet-inspired military science-fiction to you?

No Hero is an excellent tutorial on hands on learning under stress and should be read by all young men. Additionally, if you have somehow clung to the idea that our ‘Global War on Terror’ is not a videogame manned by perpetual adolescents, fought by our best young men, and planned by our worst old men, then reading Mark Owen’s often heart wrenching memoir might just wake you the FUBAR up.

Thanks Mark.