MCPRP Reading List: Gunnery Sergeant
Discover the essential MCPRP Reading List for Gunnery Sergeants—a curated selection of military history, leadership, and biography. Explore standout titles like *Once a Marine* by Nick Popaditch and *We Were Soldiers Once...and Young* for profound insights into combat, courage, and service.
Book
Once a Marine
by Nick Popaditch
Known as "The cigar marine" from an AP photograph taken April 9, 2003, this is the story of Gunnery Sergeant Nick Popaditch from his tours in Iraq, to his injuries which left him legally blind and partially deaf, and to his struggle to remain a true marine.
Book
We Were Soldiers Once...and Young
by Lt. General Ha Moore
Each year, the Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps selects one book that he believes is both relevant and timeless for reading by all Marines. The Commandant's choice for 1993 was We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young. In November 1965, some 450 men of the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, under the command of Lt. Col. Hal Moore, were dropped by helicopter into a small clearing in the Ia Drang Valley. They were immediately surrounded by 2,000 North Vietnamese soldiers. Three days later, only two and a half miles away, a sister battalion was chopped to pieces. Together, these actions at the landing zones X-Ray and Albany constituted one of the most savage and significant battles of the Vietnam War. How these men persevered--sacrificed themselves for their comrades and never gave up--makes a vivid portrait of war at its most inspiring and devastating. General Moore and Joseph Galloway, the only journalist on the ground throughout the fighting, have interviewed hundreds of men who fought there, including the North Vietnamese commanders. This devastating account rises above the specific ordeal it chronicles to present a picture of men facing the ultimate challenge, dealing with it in ways they would have found unimaginable only a few hours earlier. It reveals to us, as rarely before, man's most heroic and horrendous endeavor.
Book
The Savage Wars of Peace
by Max Boot
An account of the undeclared wars in American history, including those fought in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo, argues their role in American international affairs and profiles such figures as Stephen Decatur and Army Lieutenant George S. Patton. Reprint. 50,000 first printing.