When most of us think of November, we think of turkey, Black Friday and the onset of the Christmas season. But November is also home to Veteran’s Day, set aside to honor those who have served in the U.S. military.
As a quick refresher, Armed Forces Day honors currently serving in the military, Veterans Day is for those who served in the past and Memorial Day is for those who died while serving.
With that in mind, here are few worthy reads for Veteran’s Day.
We’ve all taken American history (probably more than we’d like) and those classes are filled with stories about America’s involvement in wars, battles and other military endeavors. But they are always in broad terms – the tens of thousands involved in D-Day, the staggering casualties of the Civil War. However, wars are made up of thousands of smaller stories that are filled with human drama and, quite literally, life or death situations. This is one of them, based on a series of events involving Army Staff Sgt. Clinton Romesha. Here’s what Publishers Weekly had to say: “This ranks among the best combat narratives written in recent decades, revealing Romesha as a brave and skilled soldier as well as a gifted writer … Romesha remains humble and self-effacing throughout, in a contrast with many other first-person battle accounts, and his powerful, action-packed book is likely to stand as a classic of the genre.”
Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win
Everyone knows the Seals are THE badasses of the U.S. Navy, perhaps the entire U.S. military. But their success is more than incredible physical preparation and military training. Members of this elite group are trained to be leaders and while this book has plenty of military stuff in it, it’s really all about leadership. So if you’re looking for insight into how to become a better leader, this one is for you. Radio host Don Imus said, “The smartest, most revolutionary management approach since Jack Welch’s Six Sigma.”
Talk about a different perspective. We all spent plenty of time in high school listening to lectures and reading about D-Day. About the impossible logistics, the staggering bravery. But like all battles, there was someone on the other side. And here’s a rare glimpse into what was going on with the Germans, who had hunkered down along the French coast, waiting for the inevitable Allied onslaught. The author said the book “presents the transcripts of interviews which my grandfather carried out with German veterans in 1954, on the tenth anniversary of D Day. These were German soldiers, engineers and Luftwaffe men who had experienced the opening hours of the Normandy beach landings, and they were able to recall those cataclysmic events in detail. The result is a series of interviews which reveal not only the desperate reactions of German soldiers to the Allied onslaught, but also the surprising mix of motivations which drove them.”
It’s My Country Too: Women’s Military Stories from the American Revolution to Afghanistan
This book is long overdue. For eons, war was about men in battle and women keeping the home fires burning … or so we were told. Finally, here’s a book that finally begins to shed light on the critical – and critical in a military sense – role that women have played in every major conflict since Colonists dumped tea into Boston harbor. From recognizable names like Harriet Tubman, who served with the Union Army during the Civil War as a nurse, scout, spy, and soldier, to Josette Dermody Wingo who enlisted as a gunner’s mate in the navy in World War II to teach sailors to fire Oerlikon antiaircraft guns to Marine Barbara Dulinsky who served under fire in Saigon during the Tet Offensive of 1968. The book includes excerpts from diaries, letters, oral histories, and pension depositions—as well as from memoirs
A Civilian’s Guide to the U.S. Military: A comprehensive reference to the customs, language and structure of the Armed Forces
Most of us took some sort of foreign language in high school, but unless you grew up in a military family, you probably don’t understand half of what folks in the military say. When someone in the Navy says “Bravo Zulu” or someone in the Army walks away with a wave of a hand and “Alpha Mike Foxtrot,” they might as well be speaking Martian. If you’d like to better understand what some of these people are saying, this book is for you. And there’s more than just translating “armored cow” (it’s a can of milk) or “booger hook” (the index finger on either hand) because it also demystifies military traditions and customs. When do enlisted have to salute officers? What’s the difference between liberty and leave? And what’s the difference between Sargeant and Staff Sargeant? If you want to better understand what’s going on with folks in the military, this is a worthwhile read.
