“Born From War” author Patrick Naughton’s family has a long tradition of military service. Someone in his family fought in every conflict going back to the Revolutionary War. Patrick himself began as an enlisted soldier, enrolled in ROTC and returned to the Army as an officer.
We begin discussing my feelings about an emerging “Spartan class”. It seems that the burden of protecting our nation continues to fall upon a smaller segment of families whose service is intergenerational. While Patrick feels that a family tradition of service is a good thing, it is also essential that our military represents a good cross section of our entire society.
Patrick’s father did not openly discuss his Vietnam experiences when Patrick was a child. Nonetheless, it was his father’s service that influenced Patrick’s decision to join the Army.
“Born From War” is the result of Patrick’s quest to understand Vietnam, Iraq, and the generational impact of conflict. Looking through the lens of his father’s service in Vietnam and his own service in Iraq, Patrick brings to light numerous parallels between Vietnam and the Global War on Terror conflicts. Many of them reinforce my long-held personal belief that, as a nation, we too often overlook the lessons that should have been learned from previous wars.
Some of these examples include never really knowing who were one’s allies and who were enemies; the dis-proven notion that wars can be won by air power alone, and the dangers of fighting wars that are not fully supported on the home front.
Patrick says the “Vietnam syndrome” still haunts military decisions to this day. He is a firm believer in the concept of “total war”; employing all the tools at hand to overwhelmingly defeat the enemy and THEN consider nation building. “You can’t exert the minimal amount of input expecting the maximum number of results.”
Patrick’s next book is titled “Baker Battery Goes to War”. It follows Baker Batter from training to combat in WWII, capturing the humor, fear, endurance and humanity of the men who live it. It is scheduled to be released in November of 2026.