Here, Right Matters

 I usually don't read recent or as-it-happened political books (I made an exception for A Higher Ground because James Comey was my Trial Advocacy professor), but reserved Here, Right Matters after hearing  an interview with Alexander Vindman. I remember listening to his testimony and seeing the pictures of him entering the hearing room with his identical twin Eugene, also a Lt. Colonel, in their dress uniforms. He came across as honest and earnest, a professional who was doing his job and doing what he believed was right for his country. 

As a writer, he's engaging and surprisingly funny in the book he wisely made more of a memoir than a political tome. Born in the USSR, his and Eugene's earliest memories are of an abusive foster home where they lived while their mother was in hospice care, and within two years they, along with their father (an engineer), older brother, and maternal grandmother, were refugees in Brooklyn. I don't feel like he exactly glossed over how hard life must have been for his family, but he doesn't dwell on it. He mentions his father's initial job as a manual laborer while he studied for the Civil Service exam and the long days his father worked once he was hired by the water department, but he focuses on the mischief he and Eugene got into as the black sheep of the extended family - daredevils who were intelligent but didn't apply themselves to what didn't interest them and who fed off each others's schemes and energy. He initially joined ROTC to emulate his older brother (Leonid Vindman served in the Army Reserves), but found his passion while serving, first in Korea, then in Afghanistan (where he earned a Purple Heart), and eventually using his language skills as a member of the National Security Council. 

There, in a job usually taken by someone of much higher rank, he sat in on a routine phone call between Donald Trump and the recently elected president of Ukraine. When Trump asked for a "favor," Vindman reported this to the NSC's ethics officer (coincidentally his twin) and through the proper channels. From that point on, he started to experience professional slights, apparently orchestrated from the highest echelons and aided by an office mate with whom he had a mutual dislike and distrust. We know the public side of this story, so other than pointing out that his mid-level position allowed him to avoid recognition until shortly before his hearing, he focuses on how this affected him and his family. His father, like many Russian emigres, was a strong Trump supporter and his daughter, while not old enough to understand the politics was old enough to be affected by the upheaval. Tacitly admitting that his former boss, Dr. Fiona Hill, was right in considering him a bit naive when it comes to politics, he relies on his wife Rachel and his twin (whom he calls his inner voice) to help him realize that his best course is to retire from the Army. Now a free agent (in his words), he's forging a path to continue his service as a civilian.