On 5 May 2007, the Commandant of the Marine Corps promulgated ALMAR 030/07, which directed, in part, "(that) all Marines read and discuss the marquee title, Lieutenant General Brute Krulak's
First to Fight: An Insider's View of the U.S. Marine Corps . . . (because) it describes our Corps, and I want every Marine to understand who we are, what we are about." One book for every Marine? Read and discuss? Our Marine brethren have long had an excellent reading list, but this directive was clearly designed to get at something more visceral and important.
I was astonished (and secretly enthralled) with the order. During my two years in command of the USS Vella Gulf (CG-72), the command master chief and I struggled mightily to introduce the professional reading program to the crew and make it resonate. The Navy list is decent, but it is far too long long and has many titles that miss the point. As any executive officer will confirm, it is often problematic to get Sailors to read the Plan of the Day, much less a 60-book list that includes Forster's A Passage to India or Melville's Billy Budd-excellent literature, but not what we want a petty officer reading in limited spare time.
What is the point, then? According to press releases, the Navy reading program "was created to encourage independent reading, and contribute to education, personal and professional growth." What is behind the Marine version? According to former Commandant of the Marine Corps General Mike Hagee, "the objectives of the professional reading program are to enhance the warrior ethos of the Corps, encourage critical thinking, and broaden understanding of the current operating environment." This last one is closer to the mark. There is a cultural imperative to develop a Navy warrior ethos and build combat (not business) leaders for the future. A reinvigorated, streamlined, and readily-accessible professional reading program will help.
Like many contemporaries, I was not in a position to teach combat leadership from experience and was compelled to rely on history. We developed lectures about the ship's namesake battle and worked to make the lessons applicable to daily challenges. Additionally, in conjunction with the Navy League Richmond Council, we kicked off a "Heritage and History Leadership Essay Contest" in which Sailors who wrote essays based on books from the reading list were eligible to win cash awards. The money helped incentivize a program that would have otherwise been lost in port/starboard watch rotations and myriad hand-held video games.
It may be time for the Navy to take a lesson from the Marine Corps and designate our own "marquee title"-one book to be read and discussed by every Sailor, regardless of rank or warfare specialty, that links us to an honorable past, a difficult present, and a dynamic future. There are many candidates, such as The Cruel Sea, The Good Shepherd, and Winds of War, among others. I believe, however, there is one clear choice-James D. Hornfischer's The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors. In the same way Krulak gets at those elements that are essentially "Marine," Hornfischer reminds those of us in the Navy of who we are at our finest. The story of Leyte Gulf is important to understand; the story of the USS Johnston (DD-557) and her captain, Lieutenant Commander Ernest E. Evans, changes who you are.
Nearly every Marine knows about Signalman 1/c Douglas Munro, the Coast Guardsman who earned the Medal of Honor at Guadalcanal and is memorialized at the new Marine museum in Quantico. On the other hand, during dozens of enlisted surface warfare specialist qualification boards, we interviewed few Sailors who knew anything of substance about John Paul Jones, Arleigh Burke, or the Battle of Tassafaronga. It has become clear that business books, detailed checklists, and brilliantly memorized engineering operational casualty control procedures do not a Sailor make.
It is time to do something different, and we should proceed from a more holistic approach that acknowledges that technology is not the only answer. General Hagee admonished his commanders to "view the professional development of their subordinates as a direct responsibility of their performance" and expect them "to execute a unit reading program tailored to the mission needs of the organization." Rebuilding our warrior ethos might start with something as simple as reading The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors.
Captain Davis, a member of the Naval Institute's editorial board, passed away on 23 February 2008. He was an award-winning contributor to Proceedings. At the time of his death, he served on the staff of the Chief of Naval Operations (N3/5 NSP).