Quick Take
- Narration: Gildart Jackson handles the globe-trotting pace and operational density well, keeping the tone appropriately tense without tipping into thriller-mode melodrama.
- Themes: Private military contracting, deniable operations, the gap between public knowledge and covert reality
- Mood: Propulsive and occasionally unsettling, with stretches of dry operational process
- Verdict: A credible window into the PMC world that works best as institutional eye-opener rather than pure adventure memoir.
I came to Zero Footprint sideways, through a conversation about private military contracting with someone who had spent time in that world. They mentioned this book as a useful corrective to both the lionizing portrayals and the conspiracist accounts that tend to dominate the popular understanding of what PMCs actually do. I started it the following weekend and found myself genuinely absorbed, not by the action sequences, though those are competently rendered, but by the bureaucratic and political texture Pezzullo and his pseudonymous subject bring to the question of how these operations get authorized, funded, and then quietly forgotten.
Simon Chase is the alias used for the book’s central figure, a British PMC who spent time in US Navy SEAL Team Six and the UK’s Special Boat Service before entering the private contracting world. Ralph Pezzullo, who has co-written books with CIA and Delta Force operatives, brings a journalist’s discipline to organizing and presenting Chase’s account. The result is a national bestseller that earned its readership through a combination of operational credibility and a willingness to get into territory most military memoirs leave alone.
The World That Doesn’t Leave Footprints
The book’s central argument, implicit but consistent throughout, is that private military contractors have become a structural feature of how Western governments conduct sensitive operations they cannot officially acknowledge. Chase describes tracking Bin Laden in Afghanistan, being among the first responders after the attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi, defusing terrorist bombs, guarding dignitaries, and setting up arms shipping networks. The common denominator in all of these is the same: if something goes wrong, there is no government backup, no air rescue, and no official acknowledgment that any of this was happening.
That premise is what gives the book its genuine unease. This is not the unease of combat danger, though that’s present, but the structural unease of operating in a space specifically designed to be invisible to official accountability. Reviewer mopic notes that the book has a lot of background information and is occasionally light on stark impact, which is a fair characterization. Pezzullo is more interested in the architecture of the PMC world than in pure action set-pieces, and that choice determines what kind of book this is.
Benghazi and the Limits of What Can Be Said
The Benghazi section is the one that generated the most reader attention, and it’s handled carefully. Chase describes being among the first responders after the September 2012 attack on the US Consulate, which places him at the center of an event that has been subject to intense political contestation. Pezzullo navigates this material with appropriate caution, presenting Chase’s account of what he observed and what he was told without claiming to resolve the broader political disputes about the attack’s causes and the government’s response.
For some readers this restraint will feel like the right call. For others it will feel like a missed opportunity to deliver a clearer account of what actually happened. The book is honest about that ambiguity, which is at least more intellectually defensible than the confident partisanship that has characterized most public commentary on Benghazi.
Gildart Jackson and the Pace of a Covert Life
Gildart Jackson is a narrator with substantial military and thriller experience, and he brings a controlled energy to the material that suits the book’s tone. Where some narrators would have pushed harder for tension in the operational sequences, Jackson stays with the even, watchful register that Chase’s account seems to inhabit. The result is a listening experience that’s more like a calm professional briefing than an action film, which is probably closer to what the work of a PMC actually feels like from the inside.
The book’s nine-and-a-half-hour runtime is comfortable at this pace. The reviewer who described the book as well-written, though somewhat long on background, captures both the audiobook experience and the print experience accurately. Listeners who come for the operational fireworks and find themselves in extended passages of logistical explanation should know that this is by design rather than editorial failure.
Who Should Listen and Who Should Skip
This is a solid choice for listeners interested in the institutional reality of private military contracting, the specific texture of post-9/11 deniable operations, and the firsthand perspective of someone operating in the gap between official policy and covert action. Reviewer EVAGGELOS IOANNIDIS’s observation that the book gives a good view of military contractor missions and the politics behind the actions puts the value proposition accurately. Skip it if you want pure combat memoir, or if the pseudonymous sourcing bothers you in ways it won’t let go of. The book is credible enough that the alias reads as a security precaution rather than a credibility problem, but readers who need named, verifiable sources for everything will find the format frustrating.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Simon Chase a real person, and does the pseudonym affect the book’s credibility?
Chase is a pseudonym used for security reasons, a common practice in books about covert operations. Co-author Ralph Pezzullo has a track record of working with genuine intelligence and special operations sources, and reviewers with relevant backgrounds have found the account credible. The pseudonym is a security measure rather than a signal of fabrication.
How much of the Benghazi section is new information versus what has already been reported publicly?
The book presents Chase’s on-the-ground perspective as a first responder to the 2012 Consulate attack, which differs from most public accounts that focus on diplomatic or intelligence decisions made at higher levels. The specific operational detail Chase provides is largely distinct from mainstream media coverage, though the broader political questions about the attack are left open.
Does the book explain how PMC contracts are structured and how missions get authorized without official footprint?
Yes. One of the book’s distinguishing features is its attention to the institutional and contractual architecture of private military contracting, including how clients make requests, how payment and cover are arranged, and how the zero-footprint principle operates in practice.
How does Zero Footprint compare to other PMC memoirs like No Easy Day or American Sniper in terms of content and tone?
It sits closer to the institutional and systemic end of the spectrum than No Easy Day or American Sniper, which are primarily combat memoirs. Zero Footprint is more interested in the architecture of the PMC world than in individual missions, and the tone is more analytical than purely personal. Readers who want the camaraderie and unit identity that define the best military memoirs will find this more detached.
