High Ground

Combat leader illustrates effective leadership attributes in both peacetime and combat settings. Charts the author's experiences and perspectives as a leader and commander in many of America's recent wars. The High Ground draws on the author's personal experiences as a combat leader to illustrate examples of successful and inspiring leadership in military organisations at all levels. Many of the essays contained in this volume focus on specific military personalities that portray effective leader behaviours in both peacetime and combat settings from the tactical to the strategic. Others describe key leadership characteristics and attributes of successful leaders, from small-unit level to the Pentagon. Throughout the author provides specific and compelling leadership advice and suggestions to new soldiers, new lieutenants, staff officers and commanders. The author served over thirty years in the post-Vietnam Army, rising from private to colonel and serving in the invasion of Grenada and in Somalia, the US response to the Rwandan genocide, in Bosnia and Kosovo, in peace-keeping operations in the Sinai, and in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. He commanded a paratrooper company, battalion and brigade and served in the continental US, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Southwest Asia. The High Ground describes his observations and interactions with military leaders at all levels, in battle and in garrison, to describe and portray military leader development and leader excellence in all its many and varied dimensions. Gripping and fast-paced, these leadership vignettes will carry the reader from peacetime into battle with the American Soldier. AUTHOR: Colonel R. D. Hooker Jr. retired in 2010 after 32 years of enlisted and commissioned officer service. A veteran of five combat tours, he served exclusively in parachute units, commanding at company, battalion and brigade level and serving as a staff officer in the offices of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Secretary of the Army, and Chief of Staff of the Army, as well as the National Security Council in the White House. He also taught at West Point and the National War College.