Newspapers and journals reacted in similar fashion. "The Baltimore Sun" stated, "You'll want to read parts aloud," while the "Mobile Press-Register" described "The War I Always Wanted" as being "rendered with more literary flair and sophistication than even the accounts by bigwigs," calling it "an elegant meditation on his loss of innocence." In the military community, the "Military Times" described Friedman's memoir as "vivid, frank, precise and dramatic," while "Military Review", the journal of the United States Army Combined Arms Center, concluded that "The War I Always Wanted" was "tragically compelling" and that "[Friedman's] work is fresh, angry, cynical, and riveting."