Book Review: Never Quit by Jimmy Settle

Never Settle is Jimmy Settle's memoir of his life as a Pararescue Operator, or PJ, for the Air National Guard in Alaska, as well as his stint in Afghanistan. But mostly it's about him going to school.

The thing that always bogs these kind of books down at the start is that to get to the gummy badass center of the lollipop you have to lick through all the "I grew up in a nondescript town...."/"later on in high school...."/"while taking night courses at the local community college...." layers first. Not so in this book. Chapter one: Jimmy and another PJ jump out of a helicopter on a frozen Alaska night and into the ocean for a test jump. They both dive into the freezing water, then the helicopter lowers the cable to pull them back in, tries to get it over to them, fails, then...leaves. The sky now clear, the other PJ looks at him and says "Now what, Jimmy?" Chapter two: Jimmy and his team arrive in Afghanistan to help out operations there. Shortly thereafter, Jimmy is lying on a makeshift operating table with a bullet in his head.

Now THAT'S how you open a memoir! All the necessary growing up/teenage years/early adulthood stuff follow after that, but after putting them in the context of TWO amazing (and unfinished) stories, the mandatory bits just fly by.

As you can imagine for something as complicated as being a PJ (where you have to be prepared for multiple rescue situations in multiple environments - as well as the fact that you're also a soldier), there is a lot of schooling involved. In Jimmy's book, there is also a lot of schooling involved. After the two opening stories, Jimmy's pre-PJ life, and a description of all the classes he had to take, by the time Jimmy earns the maroon beret of a PJ, the book is more than three quarters done. And THEN he has to go to classes to learn how to apply everything he learned to being an ALASKAN PJ.

Make no mistake, though - the schooling he goes through is fascinating. First there's the same basic training that all armed forces go through, but after that he needed to go to Airborne school, dive school, paramedic school (which included a stint working out of a hospital in Camden, NJ - one of the places in the country where the injuries most replicate those in a warzone), SERE school (Search, Evade, Resist, and Escape - it's here that he learned the important lesson that ants have a surprisingly pleasant citrusy taste - but you've got to bite them before they bite you!), sniper school, and others. And through it all, he has to pass every course, despite injuries, physical limitations, or scheduling conflicts (or his propensity for pulling pranks). The Alaska PJs gave him three strikes total over the course of his training - he gets awfully close to the limit.

Again, the training a intriguing, but by the time he is finally a fully-fledged Alaska PJ, the book is 80% done (a figure I know as fact thanks to reading this on a Kindle!). It feels like from that point on he goes on 2-3 missions in Alaska, then 2-3 missions in Afghanistan (including, incredibly, being shot in the head - it's amazing that he survived much less carried out more missions!), then was medically discharged. I'm not sure if most of the missions ran together for him, or if it actually happened like that that he spent more time training to be a PJ than ACTUALLY being a PJ, but I was a bit disappointed that the PJ missions weren't the focus of the book.

Overall, though, this is a fun read about an amazing part of our military we don't hear much about - seven out of ten hot dogs!