Marine Strategy for Teaching War Goes by the Book

The Marines are looking for a few good books.

Gen. A. M. Gray, commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, believes that “Marines fight better when they fight smarter.”

So he ordered sergeants and other noncommissioned officers below them to read two to four books a year and directed those ranked higher to read three to six.

Rock-hard drill sergeants will find “War and Peace,” “All Quiet on the Western Front” and “The Red Badge of Courage” on Gray’s list--but not Shakespeare, Joyce or Dickens. Gray’s list of 175 titles emphasizes war and its heroes. He recommends biographies of Patton, Eisenhower and MacArthur with books on strategy by Mao, Thucydides and Von Clausewitz.

For Combat Experience

The goal, explained Brig. Gen. Paul Van Riper, president of the Marine Corps University at Quantico, Va., is to provide vicarious combat experience.

“Training and exercises are limited by money and time, so this is the best alternative,” he said.

“The key word is synthesis. You take from what you learn about battles at Gettysburg, Pusan or Tet and apply it at crucial moments.”

Van Riper has no desire to turn leathernecks into leather nerds: “We want the hard discipline, the willing obedience to orders, all the things which made the outfit what it is.”

He wants officers to storm libraries with the same enthusiasm as battlefields. Those who fail to improve their performance through reading will be “asked to go to other pursuits outside the service,” Van Riper said.

Gray has asked base libraries to secure the books they lack.

Now, will the few, the proud, the brave become the bookish?