DB: Troops Sour on Mattis

A large number of active-duty troops once enthusiastic about the choice of James Mattis for Defense Secretary have since soured on the pick after the retired general released a 6000-book reading list he plans to implement for the entire DoD after he is confirmed, Duffel Blog has learned.

Referred to by some as the “Warrior Monk,” the 66-year-old sent his reading list to the military’s entire email distribution list over the weekend. Most service members who received the 200-page email reported they were still in the process of reading it well into Monday morning....

Among the top books chosen, Mattis recommended “No True Glory” by Bing West, “Battle Ready” by Tom Clancy, Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War,” ten of the most difficult books to read of all time, and The Bible. Marines, however, were only assigned four coloring books.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

One of the delights of the effort in Iraq was finding out just how much reading our troops do. In addition to the history, I watched an entire cottage industry grow up on the subject of asymmetric warfare. So what if it included 4-handed aliens and batlike species as pilots?

Valerie

Grim said...

Truth. Everywhere I went in Iraq, from Yusufiyah to the Mada'in and from Taji to Mahmudiyah, there were shelves full of books for people to read. Obviously over the course of years people had brought thousands of books with them, and having read them, left them for the guys behind them to pick up and read.

One of my favorite books of all is one that I picked up in a dusty MWR tent on the Victory Base Complex the night before I flew home. I just wanted something to read on the plane, but it turned out to be a work of great interest to me.

james said...

Have you followed up with more by Wolfe?

Ymar Sakar said...

Interesting bit is that there are some historical sites in Iraq that matters to the Nephilim, Osiris, Tower of Babel incidents.