U.S. Army Engineer School Commandant’s Reading List | Hacker News Reader

U.S. Army Engineer School Commandant’s Reading List

militaryprofessionalreadinglists.com

84 pointstcopeland23 comments

A strange story to make it to the front page. I'm a US Army Engineer officer who went through this schoolhouse so this made me chuckle. Commanders'/Commandants' reading lists are almost always excellent. It's usually a mix of military history, area studies, professional development, and leadership books. I think every young officer who likes to read dreams of making up his or her own reading list someday.

I was an NBC officer and we had a similar list. Lots of WWI and Roman history. I think the OCS reading list was pretty good too; despite not having any time to read them all. I think the biography of Shackelton was the only one I remember actually being able to complete other than the typical FMs.

I started the site about 8 years ago because 1) these lists have lots of great selections that you might not come across otherwise (e.g., "The Cruel Sea" by Nicholas Monsarrat) and 2) .mil web sites tend to get reorganized regularly and older content seems to get swept away. So I hope this site helps to preserve some things that might otherwise be lost.

FWIW, for an overview of all the lists, there's a "map" page:

http://militaryprofessionalreadinglists.com/map

"The Cruel Sea" was also made into an excellent movie with some genuinely shocking moments for a film made in 1953.

However, I am particularly fond of Nicholas Monsarrat's "Three Corvettes" his non-fiction account of his wartime experiences, one of the few books that has moved me to tears.

Interesting list. It's also interesting to see compare the lists for different ranks and see how the focus changes.

e.g. Enlisted get a lot of books about courage and valor, higher up guys get recommended books that seem more like cautionary tales.

Seems a shame that the cautionary tale theme doesn't seem to have reached/imprinted the highest levels of civilian government, at least during the idiotic Bush administration era.

I love that the list includes GS grades for DoD civilians.

There's some really interesting books in these lists. I already had Washington's Crossing queued up.

Seeing PowerPoint in the title of a GS-14/15 recommendation gave me a chuckle.

Useful list - I just added Cobra II to my Audible Wish List. My 6th grade teacher read Captains Courageous to us - it made a lasting impression.

Probably also good (better even, perhaps) to add his "Endgame" -- a truly definitive study of the entire war.

Thanks - just added Endgame as well.

"The Goal" is both wonderful as a teacher, and terrible as fiction. And I don't think Goldratt cares about the latter.

Glad to see Thucydides down there on the list.

Truly proof that there is nothing new under the sun. Between Pericles's justification for why Athens had to expand to the unexpected agony of the plague, the decision to undertake the Sicilian expedition, the capture of the Spartiates, etc. etc... war hasn't really changed in millenia, only the technology has.

Even today, war in the end almost always devolves to questions of fear, honor or interest, just as described by Thucydides.

Surprising to see so many books on ethics, foreign cultures and critical thinking skills on that list.

Why? Those are core subjects for a military officer.

Maybe at least one book about what to do after you dropped tons of bombs and killed thousand of civilians would help to prevent the usual collapse of civilizations and rising of warlords. But of course I do understand that there is more money to make with a collapsed nation.

that would be a job for the politicians, who directed the military to act.

Are soldiers replaced by politicans after the surrender of the enemy?

Usually.

Soldiers are directed by politicians at all stages. The decisions on what to do after surrender is entirely made by politicians. Basically an army's job is to break things and kill people. The politicians' job is to know what to do with such a powerful tool as an army. In my experience, precious few of them do.

The order from the politicans for the soldiers for e.g. Abu Ghraib was to behave like some drunken animals?

No, but what's your point? Should we require computer programmers to read books explaining why murdering people is wrong in case there's another Hans Reiser or Ross Ulbritch?

Do you have a particular title in mind?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com