Product Review

Are you ready to jump face-first off a cliff or into a river, then march for miles, blow up a bridge, and engage in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy, all in a day’s work? If you’re nodding your head “yes,” then you might be tough enough to attend the Sapper Leader Course, one of the most demanding training courses the United States Army has to offer. In Grit, Guts, and C4, author Ryan Voznick provides a raw, insider look at how he survived the grueling twenty-eight-day training combat engineer course for select leaders. Voznick’s book not only describes the struggles of being under intense stress but also acts as an exposé of this lesser-known military course held by the US Army Engineer School at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. Written three months after his 2008 graduation, Voznick unabashedly encourages—and possibly, discourages—readers considering this extreme military experience. He explains how, as an ROTC officer cadet, he prepares, only to find himself unprepared, ultimately going on to surmount the school’s intense mental and physical challenges. Through both personal reflections and training foibles, Voznick takes readers deep inside the experience. He details helicopter dives, eighty-pound-ruck runs, and tactical door explosions with an unapologetic, defiant, third-digit salute to, as he puts it, getting his ass kicked by Sapper School instructors. It is his inner dialogue—the “never give up or give in” attitude instilled in members of the US armed forces—that inspires him to ignore his bloodied palms, fatigued muscles, and starved stomach to get through this ultimate test of human endurance. By chronicling his mistakes as well as his triumphs, Voznick inspires anyone facing fear, weakness, failure, or displacement to persevere—as he did—through seemingly insurmountable odds.