Books for Junior Officers

H/T to Blackfive for pointing this new list out.

Company Command has done a survey of Army officers about what they read and then published the top fifty.  They call it Read2Lead.  I've always thought that when a leader isn't doing his job, he ought to be learning how to do it better.  I was blessed to have a Command Sergeant Major in Germany who believed that an NCO should read through all of the same reading lists as the officers he serves under.  He would assign reading at each NCO development session, and expected us to be able to discuss the contents of each of them, the lessons to be learned, and how they applied to us as Intelligence professionals.

Here's the list from Read2Lead, with ones I've read in bold and my notes:

(Links to Amazon if you want to get your own copy will also drop a few shekels in Uncle's gun fund.)

1. Once an Eagle - Read it, reread it, made my son read it.  My daughter will also read it, and so will Boo when he gets old enough.  It's a morality play about the selfless warrior played against the self-interested careerist, but you have to have ideals to strive for, and this one provides them with sprinkles on top.  The lessons in this one apply to anyone, military or not.
2. We Were Soldiers Once…and Young - Excellent telling of the story of one of the first big fights in Vietnam. Also gave me background information when I learned who Rick Rescorla was.
3. Platoon Leader: A Memoir of Command in Combat
4. Taking the Guidon: Exceptional Leadership at the Company Level
5. Black Hearts: One Platoon’s Descent into Madness in Iraq’s Triangle
6. Small Unit Leadership: A Commonsense Approach
7. On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society - I've read some excerpts from this, and I need to read the whole thing.
8. Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest - Another one that I've read and reread.  Also gave to my sons to read, and will give to the daughter when she's old enough.
9. Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die
10. Infantry Attacks - Read all of it in English and then reread parts of it in German.  There is a difference in content.
11. A Message to Garcia
12. NIV Study Bible
13. The Prince
14. On Combat: The Psychology and Physiology of Deadly Conflict in War and in Peace - I've read some excerpts from this, and I need to read the whole thing.
15. The Good Soldiers
16. Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae
17. About Face: The Odyssey of an American Warrior - Read it initially as a young PFC.  Reread it every couple of years since.  If half of what Hackworth says about his career is true, he was as hard as chicken lips.
18. The Leadership Lessons of Jesus: A Timeless Model for Today’s Leaders
19. Principle-Centered Leadership
20. The Defence of Duffer’s Drift
21. The Heights of Courage: A Tank Leader’s War on the Golan
22. How to Win Friends and Influence People - Believe it or not, I've read this one.  One of my former employers thought I needed "people skills".
23. Team Yankee - Great novel.  A little dated now, but the leadership shown by the main character still shines.
24. The Forgotten Soldier
25. East of Chosin: Entrapment and Breakout In Korea, 1950
26. Leadership and Training for the Fight: A Few Thoughts on Leadership and Training from a Former Special Operations Soldier
27. The Places In Between
28. Steel My Soldiers’ Hearts: The Hopeless to Hardcore Transformation of 4th Battalion, 39th Infantry, United States Army, Vietnam - Another great one by Hackworth.  He expands on something from his first book and discusses how he took a broken down battalion and turned them into fighters.
29. Street Without Joy - I used to think this was kind of dated, but considering how Iraq and Afghanistan are going, I know now that I was wrong.
30. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap … and Others Don’t
31. The Village
32. First Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently
33. Passion of Command: The Moral Imperative of Leadership
34. Company Commander: The Classic Infantry Memoir of World War II
35. Leadership: The Warrior’s Art
36. Company Command: The Bottom Line
37. Beyond Band of Brothers: The War Memoirs of Major Dick Winters
38. The Defense of Jisr al-Doreaa
39. Infantry in Battle
40. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
41. Shackleton’s Way: Leadership Lessons from the Great Antarctic Explorer
42. Words for Warriors: A Professional Soldier’s Notebook
43. The Arab Mind
44. Cigars, Whiskey and Winning: Leadership Lessonsfrom General Ulysses S. Grant
45. It’s Your Ship: Management Techniques from the Best Damn Ship in the Navy
46. Muddy Boots Leadership: Real Life Stories and Personal Examples of Good, Bad, and Unexpected Results
47. The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations
48. This Kind of War: The Classic Korean War History
49. The 360 Degree Leader: Developing Your Influence from Anywhere in the Organization
50. The Mission, the Men, and Me: Lessons from a Former Delta Force Commander

The list is interesting because it's the books that our young leaders, who will be our battalion and brigade leaders in the next war, are reading for their own professional enrichment.

I think I need to read more.  I haven't read too many books on the list that have been published since I got out.  How about the rest of y'all?

I'm Such a Romantic

The other day, I asked for advice on how to spend the gift card I got for my anniversary.  Nancy and Peter suggested books by Jeff Cooper, so I thought I'd go that way.

First, I followed Peter's advice and got The Art of the Rifle. Seems to be a good place to start. 

 

Next I got Principles of Self Defense.  Also sounds like a good addition.

Continuing our mini-hobby of self-sufficiency and prepping, I got Square Foot Gardening.  We already do a lot of the stuff in that particular niche, with our flowerpot tomatoes, raised garden beds, and using strawberries and fruit trees as landscaping, but having a reference around will be a help.

So far so good.  All of these are for me and my interests.

The last two, on the other hand, got me a strange look from Irish Woman when I told her about them.

That's right, ladies and gentlemen, I spent my anniversary gift buying Dr. Seuss books, specifically The Sneetches and and the ABC book.  My excuse is that I'll read them to Boo and then put them back for the grandkids, which are hopefully at least a decade away.  Irish Woman laughed, and told me that my un-romantic practical side was showing.

Advice Bleg

Apparently, I am an infuriating man who buys everything he wants for himself, which makes it difficult to purchase an anniversary gift.  So I have myself a nice Amazon gift card from my lovely wife.

I'm putting together a little dead-tree gunnie library. So far I have a decent translation of the Soviet manual for the Mosin-Nagant, Frank W. James' Effective Handgun Defense, and a couple others.  

I'm considering getting something on the care and feeding of the M-1 Garand or one of those "If you only have one book about guns, get this one" bibles, but there are a lot of choices available.

So I'm asking for y'all's help.  What gun books would you recommend?

All the cool kids are doing it

Ever one to jump onto a bandwagon, here's the NPR's list of top 100 SF and fantasy books.  I'll bold the ones I've read.

1. The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien
2. The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
3. Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card
4. The Dune Chronicles, by Frank Herbert
5. A Song Of Ice And Fire Series, by George R. R. Martin
6. 1984, by George Orwell
7. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
8. The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov
9. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
10. American Gods, by Neil Gaiman
11. The Princess Bride, by William Goldman
12. The Wheel Of Time Series, by Robert Jordan
13. Animal Farm, by George Orwell
14. Neuromancer, by William Gibson
15. Watchmen, by Alan Moore
16. I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov
17. Stranger In A Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein
18. The Kingkiller Chronicles, by Patrick Rothfuss
19. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
20. Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
21. Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick
22. The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood
23. The Dark Tower Series, by Stephen King
24. 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke
25. The Stand, by Stephen King
26. Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson
27. The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury
28. Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
29. The Sandman Series, by Neil Gaiman
30. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess
31. Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein
32. Watership Down, by Richard Adams
33. Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey
34. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein
35. A Canticle For Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller
36. The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells
37. 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules Verne
38. Flowers For Algernon, by Daniel Keys
39. The War Of The Worlds, by H.G. Wells
40. The Chronicles Of Amber, by Roger Zelazny
41. The Belgariad, by David Eddings
42. The Mists Of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley
43. The Mistborn Series, by Brandon Sanderson
44. Ringworld, by Larry Niven
45. The Left Hand Of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin
46. The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien
47. The Once And Future King, by T.H. White
48. Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman
49. Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clarke
50. Contact, by Carl Sagan
51. The Hyperion Cantos, by Dan Simmons
52. Stardust, by Neil Gaiman
53. Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson
54. World War Z, by Max Brooks
55. The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle
56. The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman
57. Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett
58. The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever, by Stephen R. Donaldson
59. The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold
60. Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett
61. The Mote In God's Eye, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
62. The Sword Of Truth, by Terry Goodkind
63. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
64. Jonathan Strange, Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke
65. I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson
66. The Riftwar Saga, by Raymond E. Feist
67. The Shannara Trilogy, by Terry Brooks
68. The Conan The Barbarian Series, by R.E. Howard
69. The Farseer Trilogy, by Robin Hobb
70. The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger
71. The Way Of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson
72. A Journey To The Center Of The Earth, by Jules Verne
73. The Legend Of Drizzt Series, by R.A. Salvatore
74. Old Man's War, by John Scalzi
75. The Diamond Age, by Neil Stephenson
76. Rendezvous With Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke
77. The Kushiel's Legacy Series, by Jacqueline Carey
78. The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. LeGuin
79. Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury
80. Wicked, by Gregory Maguire
81. The Malazan Book Of The Fallen Series, by Steven Erikson
82. The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde
83. The Culture Series, by Iain M. Banks
84. The Crystal Cave, by Mary Stewart
85. Anathem, by Neal Stephenson
86. The Codex Alera Series, by Jim Butcher
87. The Book Of The New Sun, by Gene Wolfe
88. The Thrawn Trilogy, by Timothy Zahn
89. The Outlander Series, by Diana Gabaldan
90. The Elric Saga, by Michael Moorcock
91. The Illustrated Man, by Ray Bradbury
92. Sunshine, by Robin McKinley
93. A Fire Upon The Deep, by Vernor Vinge
94. The Caves Of Steel, by Isaac Asimov
95. The Mars Trilogy, by Kim Stanley Robinson
96. Lucifer's Hammer, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
97. Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis
98. Perdido Street Station, by China Mieville
99. The Xanth Series, by Piers Anthony
100. The Space Trilogy, by C.S. Lewis


Apparently I need to start reading more SF and fantasy.  I shall hang my head in shame.

Do a Good Guy a Favor

Larry Correia, author of the Monster Hunter International and Grimnoir Chronicles series, has his next book coming out on July 26.  He's asking as many of us who want to read it and can afford it to either pre-order it or buy it the first week it's out.  He's hoping to repeat the success that his other books have enjoyed and drum up a little more publicity for his books and his publisher.

I've read the three books that he's published so far, and so has Girlie Bear.  If you're looking for a book that you can share with family or friends, these should fit the bill.

So, if you can and are going to read it anyway, why not do the author a good turn and buy it when it will do the most good?