There’s been a lot made recently about the Navy’s reading list for young sailors. The list, which can be found here, is put out by Chief of Naval Operations (“CNO”) Admiral Michael Gilday under the motto: “Read well to lead well.” The Admiral compiled the list that he apparently thinks will allow sailors to “outthink our competitors” by studying and applying “lessons we’ve learned from our past.”
The list however, includes many books having nothing to do with the profession of arms, leadership, or history, and some are little more than polemics against American values and the legitimacy of our constitutional government. Why Admiral Gilday felt compelled to include these titles is a question for another day, but wouldn’t a young Staff Sergeant learn more about the true essence of freedom and the insidiousness of totalitarianism from George Orwell’s “1984” than from a book about sexual minorities and politics? Will a Senior Airman gain more knowledge about his profession by reading Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” or by spending time with a book about robotics?
The reading list should reinforce the military’s values such as courage, grit, ethical leadership, and an enduring faith in our country and our way of life. They should illuminate universal truths and convey hard-won experience. And although Admiral Gilday’s list does contain some excellent books (for example, Karl Marlantes’ “Matterhorn” is exceptional,) I offer the following list to supplement his.
And yes, two of the titles on my list are works of fiction:
No. 1 — “The Killer Angels” by Michael Shaara
If there is one book every American in the military should read it’s this one. A Pulitzer Prize winning fictional account of the Battle of Gettysburg, the book seamlessly travels from the battle’s haphazard beginning when Confederate cavalry looking for shoes ran into Union cavalry south of Gettysburg through the battle’s climax when General George Pickett’s division, at a walking pace, disintegrated across almost a mile of open ground as it advanced into Union lines. The book doesn’t delve into the political underpinnings of the Civil War which allows the reader to glimpse the battle’s participants and judge Pickett, Longstreet, Robert E. Lee, Joshua Chamberlain, and others on their fighting merit alone.
No. 2 — “On Desperate Ground” by Hampton Sides
A historical work that reads like a novel, Sides’ book recounts the series of engagements around Chosin Reservoir between U.S. Marine and Army units and Mao’s Communists in the Winter of 1950. Rightly celebrated in the pantheon of famous U.S. Marine battles, the “Frozen Chosin” involved individual and collective acts of incomprehensible endurance in sub-zero temperatures in desolate North Korean mountains. Men slept, lived, and fought on ground so hard and in temperatures so severe that casualties could not be buried but only stacked. Apart from exemplifying the fighting sprit, can-do attitude in a fatally unforgiving environment, and camaraderie of American troops, the book also illustrates the importance of competent leadership at the tactical and operational levels as well as the perils of strategic hubris and underestimating one’s enemy.
No. 3 — “2034” by Elliot Ackerman and Admiral James Stavridis
Proclaiming itself to be “a novel of the next world war,” 2034 tells the story about how the United States stumbles into a global conflict with the Communist Chinese, and because of American hubris (there’s that word again) and failure of strategic vision, the war escalates to an unimaginable conclusion. For Americans, this book poses obvious and uncomfortable questions about the continued vitality of the Pax Americana and primacy of American military power in the world. Written by a decorated Marine infantry officer and the former Supreme Allied Commander at NATO, this book presents scenarios and problems that will keep you up at night.
No. 4 — “We Were Soldiers Once . . . And Young” by Lt.Gen. Harold G. Moore and Joseph L. Galloway
In November 1965 the 7th Cavalry, which was testing the U.S. Army’s new “air mobile” concept of helicopters ferrying soldiers into battle, found itself in a life-and-death struggle in the Ia Drang Valley in Viet Nam’s central highlands. Surrounded, outnumbered, and facing almost certain destruction, the 450 troopers of Moore’s 7th Cavalry — ominously the same designation as George Armstrong Custer’s unit that was decimated at the Little Bighorn — fought nose-to-nose with 2,000 North Vietnamese Army regulars over four bloody days. The unwavering courage of American pilots who carried troops and supplies into the battle and wounded out (you’ll always remember “Ancient Serpent 6”) and the 7th Cavalry troopers who faced a determined and numerically superior foe is a proud yet weighty legacy for anyone who wears the uniform. General Moore’s calmness in the mayhem, smoke, and incoming fire is also an example leaders at every level can aspire to.
No. 5 — “Homage to Catalonia” by George Orwell
George Orwell went to Spain to write about the on-going Spanish Civil War but soon put down his pen and took up a rifle to fight with the Spanish Republicans against Franco’s fascists. Orwell enlisted in a communist militia and fought with the Republicans until 1937 when he was wounded by a sniper’s bullet through the throat.
The importance of Orwell’s book isn’t that he was fighting fascists or ostensibly defending a democracy threatened by fascism. Nor is there anything of particular military importance in his book. Rather, the thing that makes the work transcendental is that Orwell was serving in a militia when the Soviets took over. He saw the practical consequences of communism and the Communists; the ruthlessness, ineptitude, and lies they told as they sought to dominate the political landscape and purge various factions within the Republican ranks. The Soviets, even while engaged in open warfare with Franco’s forces, seemed to care about punishing their rivals, consolidating power, and enforcing ideological conformity more than winning. Orwell’s work reveals the peril of allowing ideology to trump all else, especially in the military. This book should be read not as a history of the Spanish Civil War or a fight against fascism, but as a warning.
Patrick “Kit” Bobko is an Air Force veteran and the author of “Nine Secrets for Getting Elected: The Official Manual for Candidates from City Hall to the Statehouse and Beyond” available on Amazon.
