Sorry for the short notice, but I just saw this today. More information can be found here.
Closing date is Sept 26, 2008.Essay Competition: Win T.X. Hammes recommended reading list
Essay competition
How: Write and submit a short essay on the book that most changed or helped your career path.
"On the plains and mountains of the American West, the United States Army had once learned everything there was to learn about hit-and-run tactics and guerrilla warfare."
T.R. Fehrenbach This Kind of War
What kind of contest are they running...it doesn't say how much the prize is
Wow, I could probably hammer out 50 pages in one day explaining how "About Face" by Col Hackworth transformed me from a directionless teen who had no interest in anything other than drinking, fighting, and skipping school into a hyper-motivated, self-brainwashed, wannabe tool who joined the Army specifically to be an Infantry Officer, to fight our nation's enemies, and nearly had a nervous breakdown for fear of missing out on the invasion of Iraq. The ideas that I internalized from reading that tome at the age of 18 guided my actions over the following 12 years more than any professional education, counseling, or example. I even convinced myself that my deceased grandmother was watching over me in combat, preventing any harm to me, just as Col Hackworth pondered that his own grandmother had done for him. But something tells me that such glowing praise of Col Hackworth's philosophy on leadership would not win me much favor with most judges. The man had his flaws and there is some contention that some of what is in the book was embellished or false or overly self-serving - all very academic concerns, in my opinion. Nobody faults Aesop's Fables for being fiction. Likewise, About Face is chock full of good lessons, whether they are true stories or not.
"On the plains and mountains of the American West, the United States Army had once learned everything there was to learn about hit-and-run tactics and guerrilla warfare."
T.R. Fehrenbach This Kind of War
What immediately came to mind....How: Write and submit a short essay on the book that most changed or helped your career path.
Last edited by Jedburgh; 03-30-2015 at 02:38 AM.
Just made my submission, based on “The Army and Vietnam” by Dr. Andrew Krepinevich.
You'll see the rest if I win.Dr. Krepinevich’s book fundamentally altered the approach I took as a company commander during my second Iraq tour in 2006.
....
I have read few books in my life where reading the contents angered me. I found myself angry not at Dr. Krepinevich’s words, but because it often seemed I could simply strike “Vietnam” in the text and replace it with “Iraq” and the narrative would have been the same.
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