What Are You Reading Now...? II

[Byrd]

Paradise Lost, by John Milton. Fascinating literature.

[Divemaster]

Because of a project in the works, industrial & corporate espionage, and teaching effective countermeasures to be employed by both corporations and their business travelers is something in which I have a keen interest. This book is priced like a college textbook and is not for the casual reader. If you have a solid grounding in intelligence operations, one can skip parts of the book. However, if you know next to nothing about the topic covered you will receive a good education in both breadth and depth on China's efforts directed against American corporate, academic, and defense targets.

[Badger52]

Re-reading in a relaxed fashion something I really enjoyed the first time 'round:

Stephen Ambrose's fine work on the Lewis & Clark expedition, entitled Undaunted Courage. Talk about having to 'develop the situation'. (Not to mention Ambrose also does fine work skewering the Federalists over the Whiskey Rebellion and the Alien & Sedition Acts; that was just a bonus.)


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[Maple Flag]

Having heard of H. John Poole's writings before, when I saw Dragon Days and Terrorist Trail on the shelf, I picked them up. I've since started reading Dragon Days.

I can't speak to his other books, but in Dragon Days he uses some pieces of evidence to draw some interesting dotted lines between the West's forced attention to Islamic Extremism and the PRCs global strategy, a link, or at least opportunity being well exploited by the PRC and other nations, that I too have also long suspected.

That said, he also writes a fair bit on eastern strategy and tactics, and makes liberal use of terms like "ninja" in ways that give me cause for pause.

I'd be interested to hear from QP's and others what the reputation of Poole's ideas is in professional circles.

For those that have read his writing, I'm also interested in perspectives on Poole's ideas, both on his interpretation of the big picture, as well as his ideas on how U.S. troops should be trained to fight.

I'm trying to decide whether to invest the time to completing his two books and maybe buying more, or moving on to other books in the waiting to read list.

Thanks.

[Maple Flag]

I should have searched first. I just discovered this thread from 9 years ago that pretty well addressed my questions.

http://www.professionalsoldiers.com/...ght=John+Poole

[Penn]

Violence of Action by Marty Skovlund, JR with LTC Charles Faint & Leo Jenkins
The Untold Stories of the 75th Ranger Regiment in the war on Terror.
Incredibly good read. Each story is an individual experience.

[Sdiver]

Rereading George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm.

[Flagg]

Ingenious and Innovation Engine

2 books by Tina Seelig from the Stanford d.school.

Some really good innovation and creativity takeaways for the non kinetic problem solving.

[Marauder06]

Originally Posted by Penn

Violence of Action by Marty Skovlund, JR with LTC Charles Faint & Leo Jenkins
The Untold Stories of the 75th Ranger Regiment in the war on Terror.
Incredibly good read. Each story is an individual experience.

Glad you liked it, thanks for the endorsement.

[Flagg]

Originally Posted by Marauder06

Glad you liked it, thanks for the endorsement.

It is a truly excellent book.

It provides probably the best perspective on recent Ranger Regiment operations available in open source.

There's a lot of both obvious and subtle context and texture in it.

If there's one thing I'd like to see over the next 15 years is more books of a similar type to capture the last 15 years from as many perspectives as possible.

I reckon it's the closest thing I've read that brings back the old school short story collection format, but in this case with the added value of all the stories fitting together well into a larger cohesive story tapestry.

[SF_BHT]

Reading Wild Bill Donovan by Douglas Waller. Been a while since I read it. Still love it.....

[CAARNG 68W]

The Prince

- Machiavelli, probably my all time favorite book.

[Flagg]

Originally Posted by SF_BHT

Reading Wild Bill Donovan by Douglas Waller. Been a while since I read it. Still love it.....

And only $2.99 on Kindle at the moment:

http://www.amazon.com/Wild-Bill-Dono...=UTF8&qid=&sr=

[2018commo]

Blue Gemini, by QP Mike Jenne. Review to follow.

(The Review): The book is about a secret space program during the Cold War. It is fictional but accurate for the era. An easy read, not bad for a first time author. Reminded me of the Stack Pole books which were passed around the barracks and during deployments. Mike was an instructor when I went through the Q and later I worked with him in the 20th before and after he received his commission.

[Badger52]

Yet to be published translation of a book published (in Polish) in 1963 in Chicago because the (then Communist regime) would not have allowed it published in Poland.

I am assisting a friend I served with in proof-reading of the manuscript which includes some introductory information & photos of his father, who served with the original author's partisan unit as part of the Holy Cross Brigade ('Brygada') during the Second World War.

The author is Wladislaw Kolacinski (aka 'Zbik'). From the introductory info:

It is the autobiography of a Polish patriot, driven by the circumstances of World War II, to become a leader in the underground in his area. He was arrested by the Gestapo, tortured, and escaped from the train taking him to Auschwitz. After his escape, he organized what became a well-known underground unit, which then joined the newly-formed larger Brygada Swietokrzyska in August 1944, although he and some of his unit did not make the march west with the Brigade.

The author is a keen observer. As I progress through the proofing, there are some still valid insights to be drawn about the Polish people, fiercely nationalist but pragmatic as well. For instance, while they had their own feelings as well about Jews, Gypsies, Hungarians, etc., it did not keep them from forming mutual bonds in support of a cause larger than immediate prejudices, specifically the occupiers of their land, as well as concern over the communists approaching from the east (who they hated only slightly less than the Germans).

It is pretty compelling stuff and, in his responsibilities as a unit commander, he discusses candidly operational decisions (even the initial yes/no), dealing with co-opted citizenry (when discovered) who've betrayed them, to intra-unit discipline when certain actions in a village by unit members threaten "catastrophic loss of rapport" for lack of a better term, in a particular village. Oh, and the suck of forest life through a northern European winter is not neglected.

The translation approach taken results in somewhat of a stilted read at first, traditional English flow being sacrificed for accuracy; however, context easily supplies the reader with understandiing.

I personally doubt this will be a "scholarly looking" hard-bound version, but is being worked to have potential as an online resource, or ePub, or something of that nature - the latter would facilitate the hyperlinking of add'l maps/resources. Should that goal be achieved I will be back - in whatever time it takes - to provide that link, as it occurred to me that many of the lessons in this particular story may be of some value to Quiet Professionals, particularly those in the pipeline, potential 18A's, etc. And as my buddy says, he gets to help tell the story of his Dad's unit... and keep up his Polish which was the language spoken in his house before he ever learned English in a Chicago suburb. Optimism abides, as I haven't had to pull out the red pencil much.

Hoping this year (finally, argghh) to be able to post a link to my friend's work on this. Now back to work...