# Damn the Torpedoes - My fight to unify the Canadian Armed Forces - Book Review



## Spartan (10 Feb 2005)

_Damn the Torpedoes - My fight to unify the Canadian Armed Forces _ by Paul Hellyer.

I just finished reading this book and overall I thought it was a good read. It is written in the first person and acts more as a personal memoire. 
It was insightful at times about the differening politicians views and their influences. A point of contention (actually a couple) was that, at times, it was simply patting himself on the back, saying how great he was, or how great an idea of his was. The other contention is that it is not simply about the integration and then the unification of the Forces, but rather his rise to politics and some personal experience in politics. 
This was not all for lost as in exploring these experiences - there were glimmers of hope that help to explain the logic about unification. 
I was rather disappointed that the book didn't delve further into unification but pitters out and loses momentum by simply talking about his tenure as the Transport minister. He does take a long time in developing about unification, and includes alot of other (at the time) current issues and decisions into the mix. Also, his quick and decisiveness - without much expansion when talking about the various Generals and Admirals being let go for x reason - really makes it seem like alot of the Sr postings were about jiving with his vision and in order to maintain your job, you must jive. What also made this book read more like a personal diary was that he would go into detail about his duties/expeditions as MND - and really paints a picture of stress inducement as well as many luxuries with the posting.

All in All : 3.75/ 5 *
Your Thoughts?


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