What Are You Currently Reading?
- Thread starter CDG
- Start date
Scubadew
SOF Support
I'm currently reading With the Old Breed by E.B. Sledge. I am very much enjoying it.
Just recently finished up Guardian Angel by William Sine, very informative on the Pararescue career field. Currently about to finish Ultra-marathon Man, not a military book but a great book nonetheless. Next up just like Scubadew is With the Old Breed, I have had it for a while but I will just now be getting to it.
Lest We Forget was a great book, I wish it would have been longer. I'm currently reading American Warrior by Gary O'Neal. As soon as I finish this one, I will move to Level Zero Heroes which I have been following for quite a while.
What exactly is that book about? I've seen it numerous times but never picked it up. Interested in reading a review of it when you're done, if you don't mind.
I just finished Level Zero Heroes and started reading Powerful Peace by J. Robert Dubois. It's an interesting book about warriors, society, terrorism, hatred, love and a slew of other emotions/topics and how they correlate with ourselves and our perspective of the world and things around us. I'm enjoying it thus far.
SAS Insider, by Robert Macklin, with Clint Palmer.
https://www.hachette.com.au/books/detail.page?isbn=9780733629747
Nearly 30 years in SASR, demonstrates how little you have to cock up to upset the apple cart and take your career away from where you'd idealy like it to go, also an indicator of the scramble for the few top jobs going in a small Regiment.
https://www.hachette.com.au/books/detail.page?isbn=9780733629747
Nearly 30 years in SASR, demonstrates how little you have to cock up to upset the apple cart and take your career away from where you'd idealy like it to go, also an indicator of the scramble for the few top jobs going in a small Regiment.
Currently it's Australian Commandos. Their Secret War Against the Japanese in WWII. By A.B. Feuer.
Mainly about Z Special Unit, whose members where dispatched from US submarines throughout Asia to sabotage & gather intel. This follows on from the much vaunted raids on occupied Singapore & fills in a lot of ground as information on the M/Z units is hard to come by.
Mainly about Z Special Unit, whose members where dispatched from US submarines throughout Asia to sabotage & gather intel. This follows on from the much vaunted raids on occupied Singapore & fills in a lot of ground as information on the M/Z units is hard to come by.
Interesting. I may have to look at that one next. I recently finished Warrior Brothers by Keith Fennel, pretty good book and interesting peek into the life and recent history of Australian SAS operations in East Timor, Afghanistan, and other places. I've been training with the ADF here for a while now, and have swapped a few books with their grunts. Good, solid bunch of dudes. I hope I get to come back here again in the future.
You may enjoy SAS Sniper, it's not bad either.
The Crossroad, by Mark Donaldson VC. I'd read that ahead of SAS Sniper. Interestingly, Rob Maylor (SAS Sniper) was wounded in the same contact where Mark earned his VC.
Donaldson has led a hell of a life, his dad died early and his mother was murdered, her killer commited suicide and her body has never been recovered. He was well off the rails before enlisting and quickly making his way West.
Donaldson has led a hell of a life, his dad died early and his mother was murdered, her killer commited suicide and her body has never been recovered. He was well off the rails before enlisting and quickly making his way West.
I'll put up a full review when I'm finished with it, but here's the overview from Amazon on it to give you a basic idea:
A fascinating, unprecedented first-hand look at the soldiers on the front lines on the Global War on Terror. Plunging deep into midst of some of the hottest conflicts on the globe, Robert D. Kaplan takes us through mud and jungle, desert and dirt to the men and women on the ground who are leading the charge against threats to American security. These soldiers, fighting in thick Colombian jungles or on dusty Afghani plains, are the forefront of the new American foreign policy, a policy being implemented one soldier at a time. As Kaplan brings us inside their thoughts, feelings, and operations, these modern grunts provide insight and understanding into the War on Terror, bringing the war, which sometimes seems so distant, vividly to life.
Currently I'm reading numerous books. When I mow the lawn, I listen to "The Mote in God's Eye," by Larry Niven. It is a sci-fi first contact book, & it's ok, though the best scifi book I've read this year is easily "Blindsight" by Peter Watts. It's written by a biologist and it was damn good. First contact with an alien race completely different from anything you've thought of, and met by a transhuman crew complete with split personalities, AI, and a vampire. All while arguing that free will doesn't exist and consciousness is an evolutionary disadvantage. Watts even included endnotes with support for his big claims. He even provides a fictitious scenario for how vampires could evolve.
Before I go to bed, I read a chapter or two of "The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power" by Robert A. Caro. I started this because I like House of Cards, & Frank Underwood was inspired by LBJ. Caro's series is currently 4 volumes, with a 5th on the way. It's considered the definitive biography of LBJ, and it pulls no punches. I'm currently at the part about LBJ in college. Caro shows him to be a self-centered, compulsive liar with a sizable penis. All in all, good reading.
The third book I'm currently reading is "Capital in the Twentieth Century" by Thomas Piketty. For the past few years, my old college professor and I meet up once a week and and discuss whatever we are reading. Since "Capital" is the new hotness in regards to economics, and my knowledge of the topic does not extend past Milton Friedman, we decided to read that. We just started it, but it is really informative and enlightening.
The book we just finished before this was "Shield of Achilles" by Philip Bobbitt. Despite being a little too long, that book completely changed the way I looked at the world. It is essentially a new(ish) take on the modern world, from the end of feudalism into the near future. He traces the evolution of each era of the modern world. While doing so, he presents each era's constitutional order, or the basis in which the State finds its legitimacy. He argues that we are transitioning from a "nation-state" to a "market state." Whereas the nation-state finds its legitimacy is increasing the well being of the nation, the market-state's legitimacy will be based on maximizing opportunity. This is a very simplistic summary for 900+ page book, but it really is fascinating.
Before I go to bed, I read a chapter or two of "The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power" by Robert A. Caro. I started this because I like House of Cards, & Frank Underwood was inspired by LBJ. Caro's series is currently 4 volumes, with a 5th on the way. It's considered the definitive biography of LBJ, and it pulls no punches. I'm currently at the part about LBJ in college. Caro shows him to be a self-centered, compulsive liar with a sizable penis. All in all, good reading.
The third book I'm currently reading is "Capital in the Twentieth Century" by Thomas Piketty. For the past few years, my old college professor and I meet up once a week and and discuss whatever we are reading. Since "Capital" is the new hotness in regards to economics, and my knowledge of the topic does not extend past Milton Friedman, we decided to read that. We just started it, but it is really informative and enlightening.
The book we just finished before this was "Shield of Achilles" by Philip Bobbitt. Despite being a little too long, that book completely changed the way I looked at the world. It is essentially a new(ish) take on the modern world, from the end of feudalism into the near future. He traces the evolution of each era of the modern world. While doing so, he presents each era's constitutional order, or the basis in which the State finds its legitimacy. He argues that we are transitioning from a "nation-state" to a "market state." Whereas the nation-state finds its legitimacy is increasing the well being of the nation, the market-state's legitimacy will be based on maximizing opportunity. This is a very simplistic summary for 900+ page book, but it really is fascinating.
How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee by Bart Ehrman
Quick quip about it: Bart D. Ehrman explores how an apocalyptic prophet from the backwaters of rural Galilee crucified for crimes against the state came to be thought of as equal with the one God Almighty Creator of all things.
Quick quip about it: Bart D. Ehrman explores how an apocalyptic prophet from the backwaters of rural Galilee crucified for crimes against the state came to be thought of as equal with the one God Almighty Creator of all things.
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- Oct 24, 2006
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Soldier for a Summer: One Man's Journey from Dublin to the Frontline of the Libyan Uprising
My Share of the Task: A Memoir General Stanley Mcchrystal
And
The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East- Robert Fisk..
My Share of the Task: A Memoir General Stanley Mcchrystal
And
The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East- Robert Fisk..
Currently I am reading, "Rumsfeld's Rules: Leadership Lessons in Business, Politics, War, and Life."
http://www.amazon.com/Rumsfelds-Rules-Leadership-Business-Politics/dp/0062272853
http://www.amazon.com/Rumsfelds-Rules-Leadership-Business-Politics/dp/0062272853
The Crossroad was the first book I wanted to read when I got here but for some odd reason it isn't available on Kindle yet so I have to order the paperback version when I get back to the states. I've read excerpts online and it has nothing but great reviews. When you earn a Victoria Cross in Australia, is the VC attached to your name only in an official military fashion or always?
Six-Two
Unverified
As of tonight, Get Selected! - it's taken precedence over Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest and Salt by Mark Kurlansky.
ThunderHorse
Verified Military
Impact: Great Leadership Changes Everything by Tim Irwin
Easy read, almost done. Very interesting stuff, probably needed to have this at the front of the list four books ago. Uses both corporate and military vignettes to talk about leadership, worksheets in the book to help you do some self-examination.
I'm attempting to refrain from "war porn" for the moment.
Easy read, almost done. Very interesting stuff, probably needed to have this at the front of the list four books ago. Uses both corporate and military vignettes to talk about leadership, worksheets in the book to help you do some self-examination.
I'm attempting to refrain from "war porn" for the moment.
