About Face is the remarkable story of a young man who rose from beingan army enlistee who snuck in under the wire with false identification atthe age of 15, who rose through field promotion to commissioned officer onthe battlefield in Korea at the age of 20 because of his recognized abilityto lead. By the end of the book, however, Hackworth is disillusioned bythe Viet Nam War. He moves to Australia to live in what the book jacketdescribes as "self-imposed exile." The story of how Hackworth transformedhimself from a 15 year old who signed up because he thought he would besurrounded by beautiful German blondes in post-World War II German, tofield hero and commander, to quiet expatriate, is a remarkable story thatdemonstrates traits of exceptional leadership at every step of the way. Hackworth was an orphan who had lost both of his parents by age 1.One can only speculate that this left him having to depend more uponhimself than other children might have, and perhaps have tended to make himrely more on his own judgment. Hackworth was raised by his grandparents,who were strongly independent people living in a small town in Coloradobefore the turn of the century, so he also had good role model.After he did this, he resigned his commission and left the army. This wasparticularly painful for him because he had seen the battlefield save theworld from tyranny as an adolescent, had helped maintain that peace at avery young age, and helped prevent China from conquering a weaker neighborin the early fifties. And yet, when he decided that the war was wrong, he went against allthe rules of a good office and spoke out to the media against the Viet Namwar. After distinguishing himself on the battlefield inthe early days of Viet Nam, he even served as an information office,"selling" the Viet Nam War for the Pentagon in 1967. Another trait common to good leaders is honesty instead of bombast andbragging. There are several pieces of evidence that Hackworthdid not write this book out...