Why am I passionate about this?

I love the Marines. After spending 12 years trying to join the Corps, with numerous rejections, I graduated from Parris Island at 31. As much as I love the Marines, I love reading and writing more. Reading and writing foster deep thought and wisdom in ways that coding, calculating, and puzzle-solving can’t. Having worked as a newspaper reporter, a military analyst, and a Marine, I couldn’t help but loathe the foolish ideas that made the wars on terror so frustrating. I have faith in the Marine Corps (“Semper Fidelis”), and I believe reading thoughtful books can make Marines wiser.


I wrote

Kurtz

By John Lawson III,

Book cover of Kurtz

What is my book about?

Annie Kurtz joins the Marines, deploys to Afghanistan, and has to make a split-second decision. She can follow her orders.…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

The books I picked & why

Book cover of American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880 - 1964

John Lawson III Why did I love this book?

This enormous biography of Douglas MacArthur mesmerized me, but I kept wondering, “Why would Manchester, a Marine combat veteran, write about such an un-Marine-like Army general?” Then I got to the part about Inchon, the daring amphibious landing MacArthur devised to alter the Korean War’s trajectory.

Manchester wrote glowingly of the Marines who executed MacArthur’s plan. However, throughout the book, he wrote more glowingly about MacArthur’s idiosyncratic genius. I realized something. The Marines were tough enough to make Inchon successful but not smart enough to think it up. It took a general from another service to provide the vision.

By William Manchester,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked American Caesar as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Inspiring, outrageous...A thundering paradox of a man. Douglas MacArthur, one of only five men in history to have achieved the rank of General of the United States Army. He served in World Wars I, II, and the Korean War, and is famous for stating that "in war, there is no substitute for victory." AMERICAN CAESAR exaines the exemplary army career, the stunning successes (and lapses) on the battlefield, and the turbulent private life of the soldier-hero whose mystery and appeal created a uniquely American legend.


Book cover of Fields of Fire

John Lawson III Why did I love this book?

I expected this novel by a decorated Marine combat veteran to depict the Vietnam War vividly, and it did. But it made me feel something more profound. Bitterness and resentment pervade this story.

I couldn’t stop reading, even though the book constantly made me uncomfortable. Marines distinguished themselves in the field, but their efforts came to nothing. The novel made me realize that no matter how valiant or brilliant people are at the small-unit level, they’re on the path to angry regret if there’s intellectual abdication at the top. 

By James H Webb,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Fields of Fire as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Hailed as the most important novel to emerge from the Vietnam War when first published in 1978, this book launched a spectacular writing career for James Webb that now includes four bestselling novels. A much-decorated former Marine who fought and was wounded in Vietnam, Webb tells the story of a platoon of tough, young Marines enduring the tropical hell of Southeast Asian jungles while facing an invisible enemy--in a war no one understands. Filled with the sounds and smells of combat, it is nevertheless a book about people, an amazing variety of closely observed characters caught up in circumstances beyond…


Ad

Book cover of The Atrahasis Epic: A Sumerian tale of irrigation, floods, and the creation of man

The Atrahasis Epic by Ken Goudsward,

Contrary to popular belief, the Atrahasis Epic is not merely a flood myth. In some ways it can be called a creation myth. However, it does not concern itself with the creation of the universe or even of the earth. Rather, the created work in question is one of culture…

Book cover of Fight Like a Girl: The Truth Behind How Female Marines Are Trained

John Lawson III Why did I love this book?

I love the part in this book when Germano is preparing to go to the Marine Corps Birthday Ball, and many guys are stunned to learn she will wear her uniform, not a dress. These male Marines believe a woman should attend the November gala dressed not like the Marine she is but as a civilian.

I’ve witnessed this attitude elsewhere. I was a freshman at Washington & Lee University when the school, which has been around since 1749, finally admitted women. The old guard wasn’t happy to see them, but doubling the brain pool made the school smarter. Women are about 10 percent of the Marine Corps these days, so I kept thinking about Washington & Lee as I read Germano’s book.

By Kate Germano, Kelly Kennedy,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Fight Like a Girl as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

One woman's professional battle against systemic gender bias in the Marines and the lessons it holds for all of us.

The Marine Corps continues to be the only service where men and women train separately in boot camp or basic training. This segregation negatively affects interaction with male marines later on, and, lower expectations of female recruits are actively maintained and encouraged. But Lieutenant Colonel Kate Germano arrived at the Fourth Recruit Training Battalion at Parris Island--which exclusively trains female recruits--convinced that if she expected more of the women just coming into Corps, she could raise historically low standards for…


Book cover of The Best and the Brightest

John Lawson III Why did I love this book?

This is my favorite book because Halberstam works so hard to help us understand the intellectual, moral, and personality flaws plaguing the architects of America’s Vietnam debacle.

I believe Marines must understand the civilians who hold the reins if the Corps is to become wiser. This book tells a tragic story, but wisdom and moral courage surface occasionally. Several bright moments belong to Gen. David Shoup, the 22nd Commandant of the Marine Corps.

I love the time he did his best to tell wonkish officials in the Kennedy Administration that their delusional plans for meddling in Cuba (what became “The Bay of Pigs” incident) didn’t square with his military experience (he had earned a Medal of Honor at Tarawa during World War II).

By David Halberstam,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The Best and the Brightest as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

David Halberstam’s masterpiece, the defining history of the making of the Vietnam tragedy, with a new Foreword by Senator John McCain.

"A rich, entertaining, and profound reading experience.”—The New York Times

Using portraits of America’s flawed policy makers and accounts of the forces that drove them, The Best and the Brightest reckons magnificently with the most important abiding question of our country’s recent history: Why did America become mired in Vietnam, and why did we lose? As the definitive single-volume answer to that question, this enthralling book has never been superseded. It is an American classic.

Praise for The Best…


Ad

Book cover of Loveland

Loveland by Susan Ostrov,

What happens when a feminist who studies romance turns the lens on her own romantic adventures?

Loveland is about how the author came to understand this journey to the far country of love—dating, marriage, a forbidden love affair, an unusual love affair as an older woman—as part of a larger…

Book cover of The Root: The Marines in Beirut

John Lawson III Why did I love this book?

I started to love this book as soon as I realized I didn’t hate it. Initially, I thought Hammel had no point. He showed Marines doing this and that in Beirut. Sometimes they were hanging out, sometimes they were fighting. Then I realized Hammel had captured everything perfectly.

I didn’t understand what the Marines were doing in Beirut because they didn’t understand what they were doing there, and they didn’t understand what they were doing there because Washington didn’t know why it sent them there.

In that context, I grasped the tragedy of the deadly Beirut barracks bombing of Oct. 23, 1983. Nearly 250 Marines died because of an intellectual vacuum.

By Eric Hammel,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Root as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

THE ROOT The Marines in Beirut August 1982-–February 1984 Eric Hammel. Facing northward out of a second-deck window, the lance corporal was hurled through the window and out into mid-air. He fell thirty feet to the ground and landed on his feet. He was not harmed until falling debris struck him on the head and shoulders. Nearly every other member of the recon platoon in his compartment was killed in the inferno. At 6:22 A.M. on October 23, 1983, a yellow Mercedes truck raced across the parking lot of the Beirut International Airport in Lebanon. Crashing through a chain-link gate…


Explore my book 😀

Kurtz

By John Lawson III,

Book cover of Kurtz

What is my book about?

Annie Kurtz joins the Marines, deploys to Afghanistan, and has to make a split-second decision. She can follow her orders. Or she can follow her conscience. Nick Willard is a journalist who has pined for Annie since they were in prep school together. While doing his job, he discovers what Annie did. 

Together, Nick and Annie battle the half-witted strategies that made the wars on terror so frustrating, wrestle with conflicts between law and morality, and explore the tensions between love and friendship.

Book cover of American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880 - 1964
Book cover of Fields of Fire
Book cover of Fight Like a Girl: The Truth Behind How Female Marines Are Trained

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

2,006

readers submitted
so far, will you?

Ad

📚 You might also like…

Book cover of Up the Down Escalator: Medicine, Motherhood, and Multiple Sclerosis

Up the Down Escalator by Lisa Doggett,

2024 Gold Winner, Benjamin Franklin Awards, Health & Fitness Category

2024 International Book Awards, Winner, Autobiography/Memoir Category and Health: Women's Health Category

A memoir of triumph in the face of a terrifying diagnosis, Up the Down Escalator recounts Dr. Lisa Doggett's startling shift from doctor to patient, as she learns…

Book cover of The Dark Backward

The Dark Backward by D.W. Buffa,

The Dark Backward is the story of the strangest case ever tried in a court of law. The defendant, who does not speak English or any other language anyone can identify, had been found on an island no one knew existed and charged with murder, rape, and incest. 

He is…

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in the Vietnam War, United States Marines, and Beirut?

The Vietnam War 248 books
Beirut 14 books