Title:  The System Is Unforgiving: Play by the Rules and Win
Author:  Allen F. Maxwell
Publisher: ‎ Morgan James Publishing
ISBN: 9781631955884
Pages:  ‎ 278
Genre:  Memoir
Reviewed by:  David Allen

Hollywood Book Reviews

 

How’s this for starters: “I learned early on how to survive the streets. My father…was mainly hanging out in the streets with his friends, having girlfriends, and leaving my mother to take care of all seven children.”

According to Allen F. Maxwell, the author of this super inspirational memoir about his career in the Navy, his travels, his family, his vision, the System is unforgiving. The beauty of Maxwell’s story is that it infects us, in a good way, with a sense of how to actually make the system work for us.

Fascinating how different temperaments react, rise and fall…differently, in response to the same provoking circumstances. Retired Naval officer and now successful defense contractor, Maxwell generously shares the pangs and joys of his ultimately triumphant ride — the journey of a self-made hero, a Black American who faced the odds, decided that he and his family were worth it, and fought the good fight. And made it.

Maxwell’s journey begins in Baxley, Georgia, on a tobacco plantation. He starts his 22-year career in the Navy as an airplane mechanic…a sailor in boot camp, on the USS Dixie, then the USS Shenandoah and Kincaid…a torpedo timing man in Charleston…and much more, making for an impressive world tour and life. He marries twice, has two daughters, moves to Orlando. Maxwell is deployed to the Persian Gulf, experiences a warship collision at sea, is struck by the supreme importance of family. He becomes a highly placed (GS-15) civil servant and a successful defense contractor.

The author codifies his experience. In so doing he makes sense of our own. He and his readers learn from his experience, in many big ways. His largesse, both as a writer and a person, takes the form of 15 governing rules to live and succeed by, which have worked time and again for him. Example: Be discerning about whom you trust with your ambitions. The sections describing life onboard Naval vessels (including submarines) and his time in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are especially compelling. So is his personal, ebullient, and eminently rational tone.

Happily, Allen F. Maxwell trusted us enough to write this book.