A Soldier’s Dream: Captain Travis Patriquin and the Awakening of Iraq tells the story of Travis Patriquin, an Arabic-speaking Army officer who lost his life while helping lay the groundwork for the Anbar Awakening. The book caught my attention for two reasons. First, as an Arabic-speaking military officer, I’m interested in how other Arabic-speaking officers have employed their abilities. Second, I often wrestle with the question of how much difference one individual can make in a bureaucratic organization as cumbersome as the U.S. government. So I was intrigued by the author’s premise that Capt Patriquin played a critical role in the Anbar Awakening.
This is an enjoyable book at several levels. First, it’s a worthy tribute to a fallen soldier who did great things for his country and for the people of Iraq. I’d read about Patriquin’s famous stick-drawing COIN briefing, but knew very little about the man himself. I enjoyed coming alongside him and seeing the Anbar Awakening through the lens of his experience. Second, and perhaps more importantly, the author did a great job using Patriquin’s story to highlight the heroism of the U.S. Army in general. By telling his story, the author tells something of the story of every soldier who fought in Iraq. Third, the book tells part of the history of the Anbar Awakening itself.
A couple tangential thoughts I had from the book:
1) As an Olmsted scholar, I had to think long and hard about why I was investing so much time in learning Arabic. It wasn’t to communicate information; many Arabs speak better English than I do Arabic, and we have interpreters for the rest. No; the real value of learning a language is building trust. Patriquin’s story captures this so well. His unit had interpreters who were perfectly capable of transmitting and receiving information, but Patriquin won the trust of key sheikhs because of his language ability and respect for Iraqi culture. That trust allowed him to accomplish something that nobody else could.
2) 
Patriquin’s story shows the value of intensive immersion programs, which are obviously near and dear to my heart. In addition to studying at DLI, he studied at Yarmouk University in Jordan--which is probably where he built a foundation for spoken dialect, which would prove so important in Iraq. In my view, examples like Patriquin show why we need to circulate as many officers as possible through these programs. We want a large pool of officers with this kind of training and ability, from which the next Travis Patriquin can emerge. Unfortunately, these programs are often on the chopping block or are severely curtailed because of force protection concerns, which are paramount at the Embassy level. I understand the responsibility that a Chief of Mission has to protect U.S. personnel in his or her country, but I also worry about the strategic consequences when institutionalized risk aversion makes full immersion almost impossible. The U.S. government is incapable of creating a T.E. Lawrence; we’re very lucky it created a Travis Patriquin.
Patriquin’s story shows the value of intensive immersion programs, which are obviously near and dear to my heart. In addition to studying at DLI, he studied at Yarmouk University in Jordan--which is probably where he built a foundation for spoken dialect, which would prove so important in Iraq. In my view, examples like Patriquin show why we need to circulate as many officers as possible through these programs. We want a large pool of officers with this kind of training and ability, from which the next Travis Patriquin can emerge. Unfortunately, these programs are often on the chopping block or are severely curtailed because of force protection concerns, which are paramount at the Embassy level. I understand the responsibility that a Chief of Mission has to protect U.S. personnel in his or her country, but I also worry about the strategic consequences when institutionalized risk aversion makes full immersion almost impossible. The U.S. government is incapable of creating a T.E. Lawrence; we’re very lucky it created a Travis Patriquin.
