Book Review: Taking the Hill

Book Review: Taking the Hill by Patrick J. Murphy and Adam Frankel. New York: Henry Holt, 2008.


Murphy has written a coming of age story (fancy name: bildungsroman). It is not intended to be a philosophical treatise; the author himself says his purpose is to encourage others to enter public service. (1). Except for the final section on his run for congress this could be the story of thousands of Americans, who followed family traditions of military service, who faced hardships and failure and yet preserved. It was published, to be sure, because this particular soldier ran for congress and won, but make no mistake, it is not only an American story, but many Americans’ story.

The book’s prologue opens (p. 1) with his first day in Iraq:

”Make no mistake, what you and your team will do – or not do – ti win the hearts and minds of these Iraqis will save our paratroopers’ lives,” he [Col. Arnold Bray] told me. “Get out there, be aggressive, go after it.”

The first section, “The Northeast Philadelphia Story,” tells of his upbringing in an Irish / Italian Catholic family and Sunday dinners at his grandmother’s house. His father and two uncles served in the military, one uncle in the 82nd Airborne and his stories in particular stayed with young Patrick. His father and an uncle were Philadelphia policemen. The uncle, Joe Rapone was an inspector under then Commissioner Frank Rizzo (see note 2 below). Murphy also recounts the story of family friend Patty Ward, for whom he was named, who died in Vietnam. Jack and Marge Murphy had a politically mixed marriage, with Jack a Democrat and Marge a Republican, although politics was not discussed much in the home. (He followed the family pattern as his wife is a Republican). He does mention that his grandmother kept a picture of John F. Kennedy on the wall.

Murphy’s school years are highlighted, with what might be called “jugheaded teenage boy-ness [my term],” Philly-style, neighborhood fist fights, one count of being mugged by someone with a gun, and two counts failing a school subject and having to go to summer school (see note 3). His after school and summer jobs, messenger at a law firm, security guard at Veterans Stadium, selling Mass cards, waiting tables, and helping his brother with a paper route, are standard blue collar fare. The exception would be the law firm, something his mother arranged with the purpose of showing him what a professional environment was like. When Murphy graduated from high school only two of his relatives had college degrees. He applied to King’s College because that’s where his older brother was a student and his law mentor was an alumni. His application was denied. On p. 24 he notes, “For maybe the first time in my life, I’d experience real failure.” Another wake up call was the death of an 18 year old friend.

He applied to and was accepted at Bucks County Community College, buckled down, made the honor roll the first semester and transferred to King’s College. There he double majored in psychology and human resources management, played hockey, was elected student body president, and joined ROTC. That’s a good turnaround in a short period of time. In December, 1995, the area was hit with the worst flooding in decades. Murphy organized his friends, teammates and fellow ROTC members to help out with sandbagging. The next February when President Clinton made a stop at King’s College and Murphy was asked to introduce him at a stop in Wilkes-Barre.

A conversation with one of the lawyers at the firm where he had worked as a messenger led him to law school and an educational delay for his military service. In law school, he interned in the Philadelphia DA’s office under Lynn Abraham and then worked as a legislative aide for State Rep. Tom Tangretti. As part of an organization of Catholic lawyers he helped set up a legal aid station at a soup kitchen and he also volunteered at the Civil Law Clinic. After graduating and passing the bar he went into active duty with the Judge Advocate General Corps and applied to airborne school. Upon completion of that he went to West Point. Initially a legal assistance attorney, he was then promoted to Chief of the Federal Tort Claims Division, defending the government in lawsuits filed in that jurisdiction. He later joined the faculty and taught Constitutional Law. He took a second job as the Special Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, prosecuting cases in federal court.

In the book he changed his views on “don’t ask, don’t tell” while at West Point. He also quotes from some of the columns he wrote for the school publication (see note 4). A turning point for Murphy, as it was for all of us, was the events of Sept. 11, 2001. His initial reaction was to volunteer to go to New York to help there but was told no more volunteers were needed. When that was declined he decided to research al Qaeda to be better able to teach his students about them. He also requested a duty reassignment to the front lines, but it was declined. At this point in time Murphy did not question the president’s actions.

The second section of the book “The Brass Ring” is much grittier. This is the war section. As an introduction he mentions leading a group of West Point students to an international law competition; while there he was questioned about detainees in Guantanamo Bay and began to question the government’s policy of not allowing prisoners to have hearings to determine whether they were lawful or unlawful combatants. He had wanted to go to Afghanistan and trained to get in better shape. He was sent to Bosnia instead. Part of his job brought him into contact with defense contractors and he was disturbed by the high prices they charged and the fact that they were outside the military chain of commands. He cites the incidence of a contractor accused of viewing child pornography who could not be prosecuted by only sent home. This was the inspiration of the Iraq Accountability Act that he introduced in Congress.

While in Bosnia he began a romance with another soldier that eventually became an engagement. Unfortunately, like many military marriages and relationships, it did not survive the lengthy absences due to their respective overseas stays and ended after his tour of duty in Iraq.

Back at West Point Murphy began to question the some of the government’s rationales for going into Iraq. He reassured himself by reading the remarks of Colin Powell. About the same time he was accepted into the 82nd Airborne Division and was transferred to Ft. Bragg to begin grueling physical training required. His hard work paid off and he was deployed to Iraq. As part of preparation he wrote to the officer he was replacing, who told him about going for over 60 days without bathing, getting 4 hours of sleep a night, and sleeping with his helmet on.

Murphy’s description of the accommodations spare no detail as seen in this passage from p. 93:

When the brigade first formed, they had to use filthy latrines, pouring diesel fuel into the basin and lighting it on fire to dispose of the waste, which smelled even worse than the trash that baked in the streets during the day. When we finally used one of the Iraqi Johnny on the Spot portable toilets, it wasn’t a pleasant experience. The toilets baked in the sun and felt like saunas; our brown T-shirts under battle-dress-uniform (BDU) stuck to our chests with heavy sweat. Even worse were the swarms of flies and flying insects in the basin, which we felt crawling on our skin as we sat there, trying to do our business. Even so, the toilets were an improvement over the latrines.

He is also very frank about the materials lost or misplaced due to lack of planning or too few troops to do the job. Body armor was incomplete or inferior, Humvees unarmored or missing doors. This jibes with what I have heard from relatives who served there.

On p. 106 Murphy writes:

You learn in war – it becomes chiseled into your bones – that in most cases, there’s no good reason why one person died and another survives. It tears you apart when you start asking those questions, trying to make sense of the randomness of the violence and the killings. It reinforces our faith, or crushes it, or ignites a faith that was never there – as you hunger for an assurance that there is some reason for the chaos around you. The uncertainty of war – he uncertainty of my own survival – was often on my mind.

Another of his duties was hearing cases of Iraqis who claimed there were harmed by the negligence of American soldiers. Murphy and his team would put thousands of dollars in a brown paper bag and drive into town to set up a makeshift court, keeping careful records of how much was dispersed and to whom. Paratroopers who sometimes due to incorrect information would invade the wrong home left notes directing the occupants to “see CPT Murphy at Scania [the name of the building where Murphy was based].”

The other side of this are the few instances where he had to prosecute fellow soldiers who behaved incorrectly. Murphy also met regularly with military and civilian leaders setting up the new Iraqi legal system.

He writes on page 129:

There’s a reason why we have laws of war. There’s a reason we spend so much time teaching those laws at West Point and throughout military training. It’s not just that treating other human beings decently, even in war, is worth doing in and of itself. It’s that there are strategic consequences when we don’t treat our enemies with mercy and compassion.

Murphy continued to practice his Catholic faith even in wartime. He notes that, with a few others from his brigade, he would attend Mass:

Hearing familiar hymns and taking the body of Christ in the Eucharist Communion always brought us comfort and solace in the midst of war (p. 144).

His frustration with governmental decisions impacting Iraq grew. People with political connections but few qualifications were put into important positions. Prisoners were allowed to escape. Criminals were not pursued even though there was sufficient evidence against them. The Iraqi Army had been disbanded and Murphy was among those who tried to help train its replacement. The time allotted for training was insufficient to really teach the principles and restraints needed.

The prolonged and repeated deployments have also taken their toll on the families of the troops. Murphy’s engagement was not the only one that dissolved under the strain of long separations. Marriages fray and shatter. Military suicides are on the rise.

The third section of the book is the section that got the book published – it focuses primarily on his congressional campaign. However, it starts out with problems that many veterans have returning from war. For his first six months stateside he was a trial counsel at Ft. Bragg but he decided to return to civilian life. From p. 184:

It had been more than ten years since I first wore the uniform and I was looking for something new. At first, I thought I might return to the law, but reentering the Philadelphia legal profession from North Carolina proved difficult. My blue-collar background and years in the army didn’t come with many connections. Firms in the Philadelphia area weren’t exactly beating down my door; they weren’t sure to what extent my nineteen- and twenty-hour days in Iraq would translate into billable hours.

He decided to volunteer on John Kerry’s presidential campaign, following the suggestion of a friend of his mother’s who was active in Pennsylvania politics. Eventually he and another veteran became veteran’s coordinators for Pennsylvania, speaking to groups and rallies, and working with visitors like General Wesley Clark and Senator Max Cleland.

After the 2004 election Murphy returned to Bucks County, became active in the local Catholic community and, eventually, found a job at a law firm in Philadelphia. People began encouraging him to run for office himself. He spoke to family and friend, his Lenten group, and those involved in politics. A common response from the politically connected was that he hadn’t paid his dues yet. His interest was congressional as opposed to state office, as decisions regarding the Iraq War are made at the federal level. He describes his decision to run on p. 194:

Finally, in the spring of 2005, with my personal savings at $322, without a single campaign dollar in the bank, without anybody knowing who the hell I was, and with a working-class Northeast Philly accent that made the blue bloods in Pennsylvania politics cringe (an accent I’ll probably have until the day I die), I decided to go for it. We had to put out country back on track, and impossible odds were not enough to deter me. As Captain Langley had said in Iraq, “Remember – impossible is our regular workday.”

And so, he declared his candidacy. He met with local powerbrokers, such as Congressman Bob Brady, statewide powerbrokers, such as Congressman John Murtha, and national powerbrokers, such as Congressman Rham Emanuel who, as he is wont to do, told the candidate to come back when he had raised a certain amount of money. He also discusses his primary opponents and credits those who helped him out in the very early days. Early in the congressional race he met a fellow attorney, a young woman at the same firm; the attraction flowered into love and marriage.

The netroots also came into play during the campaign. On page 204 he writes:

One of the turning points in the primary campaign came in August [2005], during a candidates’ forum with top Philadelphia Internet bloggers at Yard’s Brewery. The forum was moderated by Chris Bowers of MyDD.com, a huge supporter Ginny Schrader [another candidate in the race]. I hadn’t been invited, but as an avid reader of MyDD.com and other local political blogs, I decided to just show up. Unlike the other candidates, I didn’t have campaign materials or prepared remarks, but when I explained who I was, I was invited to give a brief speech.

Later on that page he says “The buzz from the netroots community gave our team hope during those early days, and helped us get taken seriously.” Murphy also addresses his first national television appearance on Hardball, something often brought up by his opponents. He describes is at a “low point” and says he was trying to answer the question (would he have voted to authorize the war in Iraq) without tarnishing the memory of those who had died in battle.

The primary campaign was fast-paced. Two other candidates dropped out, a third endorsed Murphy, leaving it a contest between him and Andy Warren. Murphy won the primary, and it was on to the general against freshman Republican Mike Fitzpatrick. It seemed a near impossible task. Fitzpatrick was popular and had a large campaign bank account. Even the unions, traditionally a Democratic stronghold, seemed to favor Fitzpatrick, as did the National VFW (though the local chapter, to which Murphy belonged, did support him). Murphy designed a series of plans spelling out what he would do if elected. The book notes a number of incidents when the campaigning became personal and nasty. One example is a group of people led by a member of Fitzpatrick’s family who singled out Murphy and his wife, then eight months pregnant, as they came out of church one Sunday morning. A Murphy volunteer called the police on the same family member when the relative made threatening remarks while holding a knife. Murphy’s military service and religious beliefs were questioned. Other incidents were more standard campaign fare, such as damaged lawn signs.

The polls, like the race, were close. Both political parties spent over a million dollars, the GOP $3.6 million, the Democrats $1.5 million. Fitzpatrick raised $3.1 million, Murphy $2.3 million. The elections results were also close. In the end Murphy won Pennsylvania’s 8th congressional district by 1,518 votes. The slim margin of victory came not from Bucks County but from the slivers of Montgomery County and Philadelphia that are included in the district.

This last section of the book was a very pleasant read for me as I attended a number of the events he describes; a trip down memory lane if you will. I listened to some of the radio appearances and debates. Many of these were the subject of blog posts.

Murphy includes an epilogue about his first few months in office, discussing some of the legislation he has supported (war funding bills that include timelines for bringing the troops home) and opposed (war funding bills that don’t). He writes about his reasons for joining the Blue Dog Coalition. He also discusses some of the personal aspects, such as the difficulty of being away from home, his wife and daughter. He ends the book with this (p. 263):

Now is a defining moment in our nation’s history. America faces steep challenges at home and abroad. But I’m confident we’ll meet them. Because if there’s one thing I’ve relearned throughout my life, it’s that no hill is too hard to take, so long as we climb it together.

I enjoyed reading the book.


Notes:

(1) Waring, Tom, “U S Rep Murphy delivers on a novel idea,” Northeast Times 2/21/08

(2) Murphy mentions that his mother worked for Republican State Senator Joe Conti (p. 190). He talks about his uncle Joe Rapone but doesn’t mention that after retiring from the Philadelphia police force Rapone worked as chief of staff for State Senator Vince Fumo. Rapone’s political work would have been while Murphy was in high school and college, ending about the time Murphy graduated. See Rapone’s Inquirer obituary by Gayle Ronan Sims on 2/29/08

(3) Murphy is honest about his less than exemplary high school years. As mentioned he attended summer school two summers because of cutting class and failing grades. For those who saw the first Indiana Jones movie, “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” remember the scene where the bad guy looked into the ark? My children have a clear understanding that this is what would happen if they skip school and flunk. I felt a need to mention this in case one of them finds this review at some future point and says “you didn’t say anything about Patrick Murphy failing algebra.”

(4) Some people can’t see the forest for the trees; I look at the moss on the bark on one side of a very few trees. Before the 2006 elections I wrote a blog post on the “Murphy’s Law” column that the congressman wrote while a professor at West Point. In his book Murphy quotes from three of those columns. As it happens I still had my copies in my files. Before someone else does this I checked the quotes to make sure they are accurate. In the Sept. 27, 2002 column he uses the word “homerun.” In the quote from the book (p. 75) it is separated into two words, “home run.” In the Sept. 14, 2001 quote in the book (p. 63) he spells out “ninety to ninety-five” and starts a sentence but in the original column the sentence started out “Because 90 to 95.” Spelling conventions state that numbers must be spelled out if they begin a sentence. In the same quote the last sentence is “The Taliban has continually given a safe haven to Osama bin Laden.” In the original column the period is a column followed by this phrase, “even though he is the world’s most wanted terrorist. Should anyone indicate there are any other differences they are completely incorrect. The elipses are in the correct places and nothing is taken out of context. I give my official and formal stamp of approval.