Army Aunts.("The Mission: Waging War and Keeping Peace with America's Military")(Book Review)

The Mission: Waging War and Keeping Peace with America's Military, by Dana Priest (Norton, 384 pp., $26.95)

From the late 1940s until the end of the 1980s, a single unambiguous mission concentrated the minds and energies of America's armed forces. The U.S. military existed to deter and, if necessary, defeat The Threat -- aggression by the Soviet Union or by Soviet pawns and proxies. For Americans in uniform, of course, the Cold War was by no means a "simpler time." An era that included the bloody frustrations of Korea and the agonizing failure of Vietnam was anything but simple. Still, the overriding imperative of defending the Fulda Gap imparted to the business of soldiering a remarkable clarity of purpose.

When the Berlin Wall came down, that mission abruptly ended. Almost as quickly, clarity on military matters vanished. For no sooner did the Soviets call it quits than American soldiers found themselves embarking upon an extraordinary journey. Over the course of the next decade that journey took them to Panama, the Persian Gulf, "Kurdistan," the Horn of Africa, Haiti, the Balkans, and Central Asia, to name only the most prominent destinations. The journey also saw our fighting men shouldering an array of new responsibilities. From time to time, Washington still called upon America's warriors to wage war. But it also, and with greater frequency, pressed them into service as peacekeepers, nation-builders, purveyors of humanitarian relief, and agents of influence charged with "shaping" a new international order.

The vast majority of American citizens -- holding soldiers in high esteem but increasingly oblivious to what military service actually entails -- attended to this journey only fitfully. When the prospect of fighting loomed large, we paid attention. Once the danger passed or the shooting stopped, we quickly lost interest.

In the process, Americans missed one of the decade's biggest stories. Riveted by Bill Clinton's sexual hijinks, who could spare the time or attention to inquire why U.S. troops stayed on in Bosnia long after the one-year deadline Clinton had set for their withdrawal? Fixated with the dot.boom's promise of easy money, who could spare the time to ask why senior U.S. military commanders were busily crisscrossing the world's oceans to call on sheiks, sultans, potentates, and assorted presidents-for-life?

In a post-Clinton, dot.bust, post-9/11 world, Dana Priest offers us the opportunity to make amends. An award-winning correspondent for the Washington Post, Priest spent much of the 1990s accompanying American soldiers on their far-flung travels. In The Mission, she recounts their story with verve, insight, and empathy. The result is a book that is consistently instructive and frequently disturbing.

It is also very much a reporter's book, descriptive rather than analytical and all the more compelling on that account. The Mission does not provide -- nor does it pretend to be -- a comprehensive history of the U.S. military since the end of the Cold War. It recounts selected episodes, but does so in vivid detail, providing an up-close, intimate look at an institution that Americans profess to admire but in general take for granted.