The Gulf

Series protagonist Dan Lenson is now second in command of a U.S. Navy destroyer, escorting Persian Gulf tanker convoys during the Iran-Iraq War. He is a squeaky-clean, by-the-book, duty-honor-country officer nonetheless ambivalent about the Navy's mission here and suspicious of war-happy superiors. The foil, Captain Benjamin Shaker, is one of those. Scarred by an earlier missile attack which sank his ship, he wants two things: Never again to get caught unready for battle. And payback. To Poyer's credit, he doesn't make Shaker a cardboard bad guy. Seen through Lenson's eyes, Shaker motivates men to fight and orients the ship to war rather than routine and regulation - and Lenson recognizes that's not a bad thing. Their tense relationship throughout the novel remains absorbing. As usual the supporting cast is well-done. Redneck helicopter pilot Claude Schweinberg is alternately jolly and offensive, as seen ambivalently by his black co-pilot Bucky Hayes. Drug-addicted medical corpsman Bernard Phelan is an Indian drifter with no friends or family behind him. He thinks about little except his next high. Poyer writes well about the advent of drug use in the Navy. Congressional staffer Blair Titus, investigating Navy policy in the Gulf, alienates every male in sight. Poyer's portrayal of this hard-edged yuppie invading a man's world manages to avoid cliches that might otherwise have caused it to become dated by now. And Navy reservist John Gordon, a self-effacing dairy farmer from Vermont, gets called up to do his unbelievably dangerous work: underwater mine clearing. Gordon exudes a heroic decency even as his call-up strains his marriage, endangers his farm and puts him back in a Navy where some view reservists as second-rate weekend warriors. They all are plunged into the mission of protecting the world's oil supply in a dangerous place and era, with Gulf allies who politically keep a distance and enemies both invisible and heavily split among themselves. Sound familiar? I continue to be impressed with author David Poyer's powers of character development and military realism.

This is the first novel by David Poyer I have read, and I must say I enjoyed it. A great work of military fiction, the stars of this novel are those who serve on the "small ships," the destroyers, frigates, and minesweepers that often do not get into the headlines, ships that perform vital duties in war and in peace for the US Navy. While aircraft carriers (as in the Stephen Coonts novels) or submarines (as in the Tom Clancy novels) are more often the star in works of fiction, the "little guys" finally get their due in this work. As the title suggests, the novel is set in the Persian Gulf. Published in 1990 - prior to the Gulf War - in the novel the Cold War is still the paradigm in US defense thinking, the Iran-Iraq War still rages, and the "tanker war" continues as well, the US (and British) escort of American, Kuwaiti, and other countries tankers and other merchant vessels through a deadly gamut of island bases, deadly small boats called "boghammers," aircraft, and mines. A narrow, shallow desert sea that winds its way through hostile, often warring countries, not allowing Americans basing rights for ships or aircraft, the seas too shallow for the great aircraft carriers or our mighty submarines, the task to protect one of the busiest and most important shipping lanes in the world falls clearly on the shoulder of destroyers, frigates, and minesweepers. As in real history, with the "accidental" firing of a missle on the USS Stark, the tragic downing of a commercial airline by the USS Vincennes, and most recenlty by the terrorist attack on the USS Cole, these ships are vulnerable, in the front line of what Poyer calls in the dedication "...a strange war, a half-war, shadowy and constrained...in what we call peace - though it isn't."More accurately, the focus of the book is primarily upon Lieutenant-Commander Dan Lenson, a star of previous Poyer novels, who serves as XO on the USS Turner Van Zandt. Hoping to have command of the ship when the captain is relieved due to illness, he instead finds himself serving a new captain, Benjamin Shaker, a man who lost his last command, the USS Louis Strong, to a missile fired from an unseen enemy. Sunk with the loss of many hands, many of the crew having died from fire damage from the missile strike, Shaker is determined that history will not repeat itself. Ordering changes in how the ship is run and even ordering torn out everything flammable, down to the crew's polyester uniforms, even against Navy regulations, Lenson obeys, but is unsure what is captain's ultimate intentions are, how far he should follow him, and how his past will affect how he operates. As the USS Turner Van Zandt continues to escort new convoys to and from Kuwait, protecting them from accidental and intential attack by Iraqi and much more often Iranian ships and aircraft, will this captain stay within established procedure for dealing with these threats, in a "war" that is waged under tight political constraints, or will he go beyond? Wh

If you wish pure escapism through high-technology boom and bang, then Poyer's naval stories are not for you. If your pulse is raised only at the "sight" of a 21st century stealth cruiser, then Poyer strikes out again. Do not fear, there are plenty of writers providing those novels. In fact, why read? Play a naval video game instead. If instead, you want to experience life aboard U.S. warships from the 1960's through the 1980's, Poyer is the way. A master storyteller. For reference, here are the titles, ship-classes, and locales in chronological order:The Circle: Summer or Gearing-class(?) Destroyer in the North Atlantic.The Med: LHA (?)(~helocopter/assault carrier) & Charles F. Adams class destroyer in the Mediterranean.The Passage: Kidd-class destroyer in the Atlantic & Carribean.The Gulf: O.H. Perry-class Frigate in the Persian Gulf.Tomahawk: Shore Duty with action aboard Iowa-class (?) battleship. I've not yet read this one. I've read some of Clancy's works. Loved his first book, The Hunt for Red October. That said, Clancy is escapism. Nothing wrong with that. Poyer is life.

The Gulf accurately portrays conceivable events within the current geopolitical profile of the Persian Gulf. David Poyer's Naval Academy and Navy Officer background shines as he shows warship life as it really exists. For those who enjoy adventure and accurately warfighting fiction, the David Poyer's novels are the way to go. Reviewed by Igor

If you would like to feel what it is to be on a US Navy ship and what it really means to be an Officer read the book. Sure, it is fiction, but you can tell that it is possible the scenarios described here may happen. I cannot wait to see what the next Surface Warfare adventure will be!