Military Book Bleg

OK, sorry – I took the weekend for maintenance – household chores and a long motorcycle ride (455 miles for lunch – mental maintenance). Work has also been intense, and so my blogging time has been sliced a bit. I’ll work on another post on Weber (I think that discussion has interesting issues that didn’t get resolved) over lunch and try and get it posted then or this evening.

Meanwhile – Biggest Guy (my UVA graduate son who has enlisted in the Army and is in Basic Training) has been told that he can receive nonfiction military books, and he’s requested:

Inside Delta Force
Shadow Warriors
Imperial Grunts
Masters of Chaos

To which I added:

On Combat
On War (Clauswitz)
The Art of War (Sun Tzu)
Book of Five Rings (Mushashi)

What other books should I send him? What do you think our soldiers should read to make them better – better soldiers and better people?

35 thoughts on “Military Book Bleg”

  1. The following samples should not only keep his attention, but give a first person account on the history of insurgency, perseverance (despite all odds), the exultation of victory and the horror of war. To wit:

    On The Border With Crook by John G Bourke
    A Rifleman Went to War by H.W. McBride
    Ghost Soldiers by Hampton Sides
    One Bullet Away: The Making of A Marine Officer by Nathaniel Fick
    Operation Anaconda: Not a Good Day to Die by Sean Naylor
    Mao Tse-Tung on Guerrilla Warfare by Brig General Samuel B. Griffith USMC (Ret.)

    and if allowed (non military)…

    Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing.

    SC

  2. Here’s a collection of relevant reading lists at the Army War College. To an outsider, this one has been particularly useful as it has a nice mix of current issues and historical background, and is listed by rank of recommended reader. The latter has the effect of created a rough sort from tactical to strategic issues.

    Send his mailing address by e-mail and we can supply the Kaplan, Sun Tzu and Clauswitz titles (the latter two are older translations).

  3. Strategy, BH Liddell-Hart: sits unashamed next to Clausewitz and Sun Tzu.

    Transformation of War, Martin Van Creveld: May be as important as the above at the end of the day.

    Masters of War: Sun Tzu, Clausewitz, and Jomini, Michael I. Handel: fascinating take on the tension bewtween Clausewitz and Sun Tzu and its practical application.

    Guerrilla Warfare, Che Guevara: right or wrong (and much of it is right), this is what the enemy reads.

    Follow Me I & II, Aubrie Newman

    Cobra II, Michael Gordon

  4. “Green Berets at War: U.S. Army Special Forces in Southeast Asia, 1956-1975”:http://www.amazon.com/Green-Berets-War-Southeast-1956-1975/dp/0804118841 by Shelby Stanton.

    Note: Since this book was written Shelby Stanton has been accused of falsifying his own military record. But this is not a book about Shelby Stanton; it’s an attempt to put a comprehensive and detailed account of the SF in Vietnam into one volume, down to the names of the individuals who participated. There is a lot of history here that deserves to be better known, with a lot more pride than shame.

  5. Propaganda, by Jacques Ellul
    Rules for Radicals, by Saul Alinsky
    The Quranic Concept of War, by BGen S. K. Malik
    Modern War, by Roger Trinquier

  6. Gerald F. Linderman “The World Within War: America’s Combat Experience in World War II”
    Dr Richard Holms – “Acts of War” is a mandatory companion to “On Killing”
    Joseph Alexander – “Utmost Savagery: The Three Days of Tarawa”
    Eric Bergerud – “Toched with Fire”

    Fiction – David Drake, “Redliners”

  7. The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century by Col. Thomas X. Hammes, USMC. Along with Nagl (mentioned above) it’s one of the best books on how to succeed in the current threat environment. I highly recommend the new Counterinsurgency Field Manual as well.

    I’ll also comment on the grand strategy type books. Clausewitz and Sun Tzu are obviously the two most well known. In today’s environment, I give the relevancy edge to Sun Tzu (or Mao, for that matter), even though I’m learning as a War College student that the military as a whole is unfortunately still stuck on Clausewitz.

    And Mark is spot-on about Handel. Great comparison of the major strategic theorists.

  8. The Utility of Force – Gen Rupert Smith. More systematic and coherent than Col. Hammes. Recommended for BD as well: Gen Smith does a very elegant job of using Clausewitz to address counterinsurgency problems, what he calls “War Amongst the People.”

    Counterinsurgency Warfare Theory and Practice by David Galula – LTC Nagl says this book should be on every counterinsurgent’s bedside table.

    I second Eating Soup with a Knife, The Pentagon’s New Map, and possibly Alinsky.

  9. Armed Liberal:

    Send him The Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer. It’s about a German soldier in the Grossdeutschland Division on the Eastern Front. After reading that, his military reality will always feel like a piece of cake- guaranteed.

    Hey, what kind of motorcycle do you ride?

  10. _We Were Sodiers Once… and Young_ by Moore and Galloway.

    They have a sequel coming up, _We Are Soldiers Still_; not sure what’s in it. But the first book’a a corker, and of course has a lot to say about Rick Rescorla and his mates.

    Haven’t read _Lone Survivor_ but I gather it is worthwhile and then some — sometimes you get the bear, and sometimes…

    Also, I second the John Keegan recommendation.

  11. How about T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom?

    I guess you are restricted to non-fiction. One work of fiction I would propose is Frank Herbert’s Dune.

  12. Marc —

    since he’s going 18X it wouldn’t hurt to get him the Tom Clancy book Special Forces. This is one of the series of nonfiction trade paperbacks in which Clancy examines a military element and it’s quite accurate, although a bit dated now. This is NOT Shadow Warriors, which is pretty much a bio of Stiner.

    It was primarily researched and written by a researcher of Tom’s named Gresham or Grisham (?). Clancy himself is kind of a homebody and doesn’t travel to all these hooah destinations.

    If you have a chance to talk to him about his career goals, tell him from me there is only one secret to qualifying, and it’s very simple: DON’T QUIT. Thousands of guys before made it through these schools. Thousands will afterward. If they can, you can — they are not all Superman. Just put it in your mind that they can kill you, but they can’t eat you, and resolve that if they insist on throwing you out, you can’t stop them… but short of that you will cling on with whatever grip you have left.

    There will be times when it is very hard. The hard parts can’t go on forever. Be the “grey man” and tough it out.

    Thinking of SF school days reminds me…. One book I took to Basic Training with me (waaaay back in the seventies) was “Small Arms of the World” by Smith and Smith (later, by Smith and Ezell). My drill sergeants were impressed! It was the only book in the platoon they didn’t confiscate.

    It later was vital in my SF specialty phase, then “light weapons.” This is out of print, I believe, and will take some finding. Get two because you will find yourself reluctant to give the first one you cop to Junior!

    The older editions include more WWII and earlier weapons, which is actually a good thing. In the last few years, I’ve run into Czech ZB-26s, Russian DP-26s, and one poor confused Canadian 1910 Ross straight-pull rifle. A friend enroute back to Iraq encountered an StG 44 on his last tour. So the 1973 or 1966 editions are pretty good ones, the last one (1977? 1981?) is not quite as good.

  13. “Once an Eagle” is fiction, but it is also know as the New Testament of the US Army – it is about what kind of officer one wants to be. Yes, I know he enlisted

    I believe Clausewitz was called the Old Testament – damn I wish I could remember who said that.

    Hammes, Nagl and Gulala are also outstanding.

  14. “Once an Eagle” is fiction, but it is also know as the New Testament of the US Army – it is about what kind of officer one wants to be. Yes, I know he enlisted

    I believe Clausewitz was called the Old Testament – damn I wish I could remember who said that.

    Hammes, Nagl and Gulala are also outstanding.

  15. Is Tom Clancy’s Special Forces where some of the behind-the-scenes of the aftermath of the Achille Lauro hijacking are discussed?

    The part that we all know about from the news is that some kind of negotiation was made to give the hijackers safe passage out of Cairo on board an Egyptair 737 jet, and there was some question about where that jet would even go, and perhaps there was some discussion of Malta. Anyway, the jet takes off and is intercepted by U.S. Navy F-14’s and made to land in Sicily.

    The action of intercepting the jet was really perceived as using the punch bowl as a commode and did much to reinforce the image of “Cowboy Reagan.” The protocol of dealing with terrorists was that if there was some kind of negotiated settlement to a hostage crisis that our side would honor its side of the bargain, although the technicality was that the U.S. was not party to that bargain and U.S. citizen Leon Klinghoffer had been murdered.

    But the side of the story you never hear about is what happened when the jet landed in Sicily. It is widely reported that U.S. Special Forces teams were involved, but Tom Clancy writes about a small army of more than one C-141 planeload of Special Forces soldiers and sailors were involved. The U.S. Special Forces and the Italian security forces at a NATO base quickly took up positions for an armed standoff while the four hijackers cooly sat around waiting for the whole matter to resolve.

    The U.S. commander of the Special Forces calls Washington on a sat phone with the “what do I do now?” question — the mission was to bring the terrorists to the U.S. on murder charges –and the response is “use your judgement” as in “beat’s us, I guess it is your problem.” The biggest concern of the commander is getting into a shooting war and inflicting casualties on our Italian NATO ally — he boards the 737 and the four terrorists are more bored than concerned.

    The commander also observes that among the four terrorists, two are rather young “foot soldiers”, one is someone whom he describes as a “rough looking character” who turns out to be Abu Abbas, and the fourth is described as a rather Irish-looking red head.

    Getting any of that crew to the U.S. to face justice is pretty much off the table, but the Italians agree to detain and try the younger two, Abbas is sprung free after which I believe he was a guest of Saddam until certain events transpired in 2003, and what happened to the red head remains a mystery.

    The hostage taking and murder took place on an Italian ship, so the U.S. guys were OK with Italy stepping up to the plate of a trial and nominal prison sentence for at least the less political well-connected terrorists. And given the appeasement-driven response to terrorism of our European allies, the Italians were regarded as sticking their necks out on this one — if the way you manage terrorism is appeasement, to switch to a punative mode carries a great risk of reprisal.

    As to the charge that Saddam had no connection to 9-11, maybe he did, and maybe he didn’t, but he was certainly running a kind of Terrorist Hilton where someone like Abu Abbas could chill (not really his name — if the terrorists have that many “Abu”s, I’d hate to meet the mother. As to Europeans not liking us for being cowboys about the Middle East, that way predates the present President.

    As to whether terrorism has a home office or a postal address, one of the things to come out of this account that is amplified in Clancy’s fictional “Sum of All Fears” is the concept of Terrorism Inc. There are variaties of terrorist movements in different parts of the world motivated by many different conflicts and idealogical underpinnings. But many terrorists throughout the world have a common bond of resentments and hatreds, and there may be more cooperation in finance and logistical support between seemingly unrelated and unconnected groups than one would think. So a Global War on Terror may be not so much a war on Al Qaeda or even terrorism looking to Islam for inspiration but may indeed be a War on Terror; not as much a war on a technique of asymmetrical warfare but a war on a broad spectrum of allied hatreds.

  16. The Anarchist’s Cookbook, if you can get it and it isn’t going to get him into trouble. If only because it tells you a little about what you might have to look for.

    A little out of date and possibly out of print; “Riot Control” by Rex Applegate. I actually have a copy of this somewhere – it came in useful for playing SF RPGs. 🙂 He does seem to have a thing about gas, though – I’m not any sort of professional in this area and can’t judge whether that’s justified.

    As an aside, a little story; a local bookshop (since closed) once had about a dozen copies of this on sale, remaindered. They sold out in about 3 days and had to restock – I wonder if they told the cops?

  17. Agent Zigzag, A True Story of Nazi Espionage, Love and Betrayal by Ben Macintyre, Harmony Books, 2007.

    Nonfiction but reads like a good novel.

  18. “Blackhawk Down”,and “Killing Pablo”, Mark Bowden “The Coming Anarchy”,and ” Surrender or Starve”, Robert Kaplan.

  19. “We Were One” by Patrick K. O’Donnell. It is about Lima Co. 1st PLT of 3/1 Marines. The book takes you into Fallujah with the grunts who lived and died there in 2004. If your son is going into a combat unit this is a must read.

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