John Dailey’s Tough Rugged Bastards is partly an autobiography, partly a unit history, and partly a description of the psychological tax of combat. It succeeds on all fronts.
The core of the book centers on the formation, deployment, and eventual disbandment of the U.S. Marine Corps’ first contribution to SOCOM, MCSOCOM Detachment 1. Dailey’s account of this lesser known but important unit in special operations history will satisfy both the lay reader and the connoisseur of military history.
In a genre that often alternates between macho chest thumping and trite tales of the emotionally wounded’s difficult homecomings, Dailey manages to avoid cliche. His descriptions of the real psychological costs of killing and surviving in combat never become sodden and his chest remains unthumped. He is honest and good at his craft. That makes for a great book.

This book is a must read for all Special Operations Forces, and for anyone who truly wants to know what war can be like. It also gives an historic view of the inception of what what we know as Raider Battalion today. This book is a must read!
Understanding the servicemen and women of the GWOT era is something that a lot of folks struggle with. This book will helps clear up some of the confusion. I would recommend the book to anyone. The Author is a down to earth man, with an extraordinary view from his perch!

As a former Reconnaissance Marine, I began reading Tough Rugged Bastards with a certain amount of trepidation. Special Operators’ memoirs these days tend to be an unnecessarily overly dramatized version of a difficult, if fairly standard selection process followed by unbelievably difficult missions, sprinkled with poor attempts at amusing anecdotes. It’s often painfully apparent that the subject of the memoir did little of his or her own writing and merely told a few stories to a ghost writer then sat back and took credit for an uninteresting, mediocre, quickly forgettable work. The first chapter convinced me that the author had trod the ground he described and then convincingly, informatively and entertainingly passed along his experiences to the reader. John Dailey writes with insight, humor and above all, authenticity. Mr. Dailey’s authenticity comes across on every page and I was hooked by the first chapter. Tough Rugged Bastards is that rare special operators’ memoir: an honest telling of experiences common to the uncommon men and women of the special operations community. I highly recommend Tough Rugged Bastards to anyone seeking an unvarnished history of the men of Detachment One and the fledgling MARSOC, authoritatively and authentically written by a skilled author.

I didn't know they made people as tough as these guys are. Regardless, this was a wonderful book that was a lot of fun to read, and very informative.

The Tough Rugged Bastards book is an easy 5 stars.

I thought the book was a masterpiece and enjoyed reading the book. I was really interested in the Marine's time in Iraq and gave it more meaning, knowing the author has lived through different situations enclosed in this book and finding out about people like Berg, which I may have missed in the news at that time.

Overall, a great read and I would like to thank NetGalley, John A Dailey and the publisher for providing this ARC book for review.

John Dailey is as good a writer as he was Marine, something I feel comfortable, saying, as someone who has made a living under both titles myself. Writers and Marines are not as dissimilar as one might imagine. Both are called to pursuits demanding discipline; courage, be it moral or physical; and the willingness to expose oneself, to become vulnerable. John Dailey is both a writer and a Marine in the fullness of both.

With Tough Rugged Bastards he gives us the truth of a life lived between domestic normalcy and the ragged edge of experience. It’s a book that sometimes feels like a chat with a favorite uncle and at other times like a Hollywood thriller, all of it leavened by an artist’s soul. In that span we find truths about what it is to be a human pursuing a personal zenith in the worst of conditions.

Read Tough Rugged Bastards to learn what it is to commit oneself to living beyond accepted limitations as part of a story offered in the voice of a man who has committed himself to telling it in a voice far more thoughtful than that of most military memoir.

LtCol Russell Worth Parker
Marine Raider and Bestselling Writer

Tough, Rugged Bastards is just as much about Dailey's exploits in the Marine Corps as it is discovering what it means to live a life well. It's rare to find an author with such a wealth of experience--both lived firsthand and learned from philosophers and writers.

You don't need to serviceman to find valuable lessons from this book. Tough, Rugged Bastards is about belonging, working hard, and committing yourself to being as much as you can be for the sake of those you care about--and for the sake of yourself.

"Doing hard things makes hard things easier," Dailey writes. But a life lived hard doesn't make for a life that's cold, unpleasant, or brutal. Dailey shows us how those hard things we do make life's pleasures that much more richer, satisfying, and meaningful.