Molly Moore's A Woman at War follows the popular template closely. Moore follows the war from the beginning of the Gulf Crisis until the liberation of Kuwait. The story she presents is highly personal, told almost entirely in the first person. Essentially, it is Molly Moore's memoirs, with a few battle reports thrown in for color and drama. Moore spent the bulk of the war with the Marine Corps, especially with the staff of General Walter Boomer, and follows the the war from that limited perspective.

The sources for the work are not documented in footnotes. Instead, at the end of the book, Moore describes her sources in a perfunctory paragraph for each chapter. These source paragraphs are incomplete and show that Moore conducted many oral interviews but little other research for her book. She makes no attempt to determine the reliability of her sources, ignoring the fact that men recount war stories for a purpose, be it to glorify themselves or prove a point of some sort. She takes the stories told her at face value and simply recounts them.

Moore's failure to question the material she presents is a boon to true scholars using her work as a source, but it illuminates the flaws in the journalistic methods of reporting that she espouses so fervently throughout the work. Moore consistently editorializes on media censorship, indeed not a page goes by without at least one comment on how frustrating it was not to be able to report the stories that she saw around her. Her constant harping on this subject distracts the reader (and apparently Moore herself) from the surrounding events. The attention that she gives this subject is appropriate to journalistic memoirs, but Moore fails to provide any meaningful framework for the debate on media censorship that she so willingly joins. She never provides a clear, coherent statement against censorship; she simply takes this position as an article of faith and expects the reader to do the same.

The importance of this subject to Moore is shown by her epilogue, which is devoted to a decidedly one-sided account of a meeting between her and a group of Marine officers at Quantico, VA. Moore describes herself as angry and agitated because the officers failed to agree with her stand on media censorship. She leaves feeling "the attitudes were as Neanderthal as ever."

In many ways, Moore is her own worst enemy. Despite her admitted five years as the Washington Post's Pentagon correspondent, she shows an ignorance of military procedures and a complete misunderstanding of military security. In a story she relates on the "trivial" concerns of the military censors she describes how she began a story: "More than 80,000 Marines have began moving northwestward..." She complains about the censor not letting the statement through, claiming that it shouldn't matter if she gives a direction because "...we don't say where it's northwestward from." Apparently it still hasn't occurred to her that the enemy very likely already knew where that particular base was, and having a concrete direction might enable them to determine the area where the Marine portion of the ground war would begin. Moore's story disproves her own point.

Moore also admits to taking advantage of the young soldiers and Marines who tell their stories to her. In one instance, Moore describes how she takes the story of a young Marine and chooses to print it despite him telling her that he doesn't want his family to know how close to the front line he is. Her defense of this decision quickly turns into an indulgence in self examination as she forgets the young Marine and talks about her own family. She claims that she needs to go against this young man's wishes in the interest of "truth," while admitting in the same sentence that she is using "truth" as a crutch. Again Moore rebuts herself, the reader begins to wonder why so much of her argument is counter to her own text.

More Gulf War Literature Survey

Introduction
A Woman at War Review.
Famous Victory Review.
From Shield to Storm Review.
Desert Shield to Desert Storm Review.

A Survey of Gulf War Literature Part II

Triumph Without Victory Review.
It Doesn't Take a Hero Review.
Desert Victory Review.
The Gulf Confict 1990-1991 Review.