Sure. The question goes to believability.

I can't speak to their veracity regarding Army culture, but some Army novels I've enjoyed:

Army Blue by Lucian K. Truscott, IV
The General's Daughter by Nelson DeMille
Secret Sanction by Brian Haig

I also enthusiastically hop on the WEB Griffin bandwagon.

+1 for Clancy

Another good military read is "The Eyes of the Eagle" by Gary Linderer, which tells of the author's tour in Vietnam with a LRP unit. Entertaining, one of my favorite parts is when they get into major contact and the QRF is a no-show. The call went back to the other LRP teams to quickly form a new QRF, and his brothers in arms dropped what they were doing to rush to their aid. (Literally, apparently some of the guys showed up wet on the LZ in shorts, shower shoes, LBE, helmet and weapon.)


Non-military
The Dune series by Frank Herbert could probably eat a good chunk out of a deployment.


By the way, that is a very nice gesture and I'm sure it will be greatly appreciated.

A non-military book series I would recommend is called "A Song of Ice and Fire" by George RR Martin. It's a Fantasy series, but will eat up time like no other. Book 1 is called "A Game of Thrones" and each book is between 700 to 1000 pages long (paperback).

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/055...lance&n=283155

Regards,
Aric

I usually associate "the willing suspension of disbelief" with Science Fiction. Looks like I need to apply it elsewhere. :)

ALL - Thanks again for the suggestions. There are a couple I'm going to get for myself.

Here's an example, comic book movies. When they're completely unbelieveable, they suck (see Batman & Robin). When they're (even somewhat) beliveable (See Unbreakable, X-Men), they're a lot better. Just my take.

+1 on Gordon R. Dickson. Any of his titles are good reads.

The 'Sten' series by Allan Cole and Chris Bunch is good.

when i was in Somalia, i read some stuff by Hunter S. Thompson (Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail and something more recent...CRS...) and PJ O'Rourke (Parliament of Whores)...they seemed appropriate, given the environment...i read several Tony Hillerman novels when i was in Saudi, as well as a couple of Louis Lamour books and one or two Zane Grey works...i preferred to be reminded of where i was from rather than reading about "work"...

Not fiction but HST's Hell's Angels is a GREAT read.

Great books! I really enjoyed them.

Also, PJ O'Rourke writes some really funny essays about life. I think he's a lot lighter than HST.

For military fiction, try the Sharpe series by Bernard Cornwell. All are very well written with historical notes at the end about the particular battle Sharpe is fighting.

A bump to see if there are any new suggestions as we work on the next round of packages.

Anything by Roger Zelazny (sp?)

Bob Mayer?
 

Former Special Forces soldier, he wrote several excellent fictional books (most sadly out of print)

Dragon Sim-13
Eyes of the Hammer
Cut-Out
Eternity Base
Z

I enjoyed them all quite a lot. He's written a bunch of scifi books under a variety of pen names that I've never checked out.

j

Anything by John Ringo, David Weber, and David Drake. They are the current crop of heavy hitters writing "Military SF" with good attention to detail and decent character/plot development. I know Ringo personally and will vouch for the effort he puts into making it believable, even when he's being "tongue in cheek". All SF requires some suspension of disbelief but these guys are at least plausible. None of them have any love lost for politicians either. FWIW - Peregrino

I think I've read Dragon Sim-13 and Eyes of the Hammer. Both were good reads, if I remember correctly.

Check used books stores. You can always score some good books there.