War Stories/Memoirs from a JO's Perspective
As a newly minted 2nd Lieutenant awaiting TBS at Quantico, I've been trying to get in as much reading as possible before hitting "The Big Suck." Given my professional path, I'm particularly interested in personal accounts of young junior officers grappling with their training, first experiences of command, combat, etc.
I've read a few already (a list follows), but I am hoping to tap into the SWC brain trust for further suggestions. Any additional recommendations? Comments/critiques of books on the list already? And more broadly, what books (of any sort) do you feel offer particular insight into the challenges facing a company-grade officer?
Thanks,
JS
Non-Fiction
Joker One by Donovan Campbell
One Bullet Away by Nathaniel Fick
The Unforgiving Minute by Craig Mullaney
The Highway War by Seth Folsom
Once A Warrior King by David Donovan
Fiction
Fields of Fire by James Webb
Sharkman Six by Owen West
Even though the two David recommended are about the British Army,
I also recommend both as being universal in the care and feeding of Troops -- and how little it really takes in the way of neat high speed stuff to do the job -- if you know what you're doing. Amazon has both: Quartered Safe Out Here. Great read by a superb writer. With the Jocks. No punches pulled, he describes the bad and the good.
I'd also recommend:
The Right Kind of War. Marine Raider tale of WW II. Well done. Different Corps today but some things don't change...
Not A Good Day To Die. Afghanistan 2002, a how not to do it...
Good one. "Bugles and a Tiger" the predecessor
to "The Road Past Mandalay" by John Masters (not Majors) is also good.
Platoon Leader and Drift Books
James R. McDonough's "Platoon Leader." Memoir of his time as PL in Vietnam. I read it several years ago, and my memory is struggling with all the details, but I do remember his initial struggle to find his place and authority in a new unit already in combat. Overall, good read and good lessons.
Swinton's "The Defence of Duffer's Drift." Classic primer on basic small unit/company tactics, terrain, etc... Short and to the point.
Have not read McDonough's "The Defense of Hill 781: An Allegory of Modern Mechanized Combat" but hear good things. It is a NTC remake of "Defense of Duffer's Drift."
The "Defense of Jisr al Doreaa" is an Iraq Platoon Leader remake of Duffer's Drift (and includes the Duffer's Drift text). It is excellent.
Battle Company Is Out There
It's been posted here before, but for those who missed it the first go-around, this NY Times Magazine article is written in a similar vein to the Chivers piece everyone is commenting on. I thought it was one of the best-written and most harrowing accounts of combat I had ever read.
From the article:
Quote:
They were still taking fire. No one was there to help. Hugo Mendoza, their platoon medic, was back in another ditch, calling: “I’m bleeding out. I’m dying.” Giunta saw Brennan’s eyes go back. His breathing was bad. Giunta got Brennan to squeeze his hand. A medic showed up out of the sky. They prepared Brennan to be hoisted to the medevac in a basket. Soon he would be dead.
As the medevacs flew out, Sergeant Sandifer had talked in air cover: Slasher, the AC-130. The pilot was a woman and, Sandifer later told me, “It was so reassuring for us to hear her voice.” She spotted guys hiding and asked if she was clear to engage. “ ‘You’re cleared hot,’ I told her. And we killed two people together.” But, at this point, the killings were no consolation to Sandifer.
As Giunta said, “The richest, most-trained army got beat by dudes in manjammies and A.K.’s.” His voice cracked. He was not just hurting, he was in a rage. And there was nothing for him to do with it but hold back his tears, and bark — at the Afghans for betraying them, at the Army for betraying them. He didn’t run to the front because he was a hero. He ran up to get to Brennan, his friend. “But they” — he meant the military — “just keep asking for more from us.” His contract would be up in 18 days but he had been stop-lossed and couldn’t go home. Brennan himself was supposed to have gotten out in September. He’d been planning to go back to Wisconsin where his dad lived, play his guitar and become a cop.
Sandifer was questioning why they were sticking it out in the Korengal when the people so clearly hated them. He was haunted by Mendoza’s voice calling to him: “I’m bleeding out. I’m dying.” He worried that the Korengal was going to push them off the deep end. In his imagination it had already happened. One day an Afghan visited their fire base, Sandifer told me. “I was staring at him, on the verge of picking up my weapon to shoot him,” he said. “I know right from wrong, but even if I did shoot him everyone at the fire base would have been O.K. We’re all to the point of ‘Lord of the Flies.’ ” And they still had 10 months to go in the Korengal.
