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Skelton’s recommended military reading

The House Armed Services Committee chairman has come up with a new national security reading list of 50 essential books that he personally recommends for military officers and noncommissioned and petty officers, as well as his colleagues.

Reading the list is not essential to testify before the committee, but Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., who prepared a similar list in 2003, doesn’t mind if people think so.

Skelton, an avid reader, said he feels strongly that officers and senior enlisted members need to read books about military strategy and American history to benefit from lessons of the past and better understand American values.

“I really think the officer corps and senior noncoms need to have a deep understanding of history,” Skelton said.

The 2009 reading list, which he has been passing out to colleagues in Congress and to military officers who show an interest, is intended to be read in addition to a 50-book list he recommended in 2003, Skelton said.

“There are some essential books on the first list,” he said — like the U.S. Constitution, Carl von Clausewitz’s book “On War” and Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War.”

In an ideal world, Skelton said, he likes to think people would read the 2003 and 2009 lists, or 100 books in all. But even he admits that some of them are a “hard read,” such as the two books on his new list by Barbara Tuchman — a 1970 book about Army Gen. Joseph Stilwell, a 1904 West Point graduate who went on to serve as commander of U.S. forces in China during World War II, and the 2004 book “Guns of August,” about events leading up to World War I.

His new list contains Thomas E. Ricks’ 2006 book “Fiasco,” about Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Ricks’ 2009 book, “The Gamble,” about current military strategy and Army Gen. David Petraeus. That is balanced by a guide to the Peloponnesian War, a two-volume biography of Napoleon and biographies of Daniel Boone — to whom Skelton is related — and Daniel Webster.

Although only military or American history buffs may have heard of some of the works, there are a couple of popular books on the list. James Bradley’s 2001 book “Flag of our Fathers,” about Iwo Jima, is there, and so is Tom Brokaw’s 1998 book “The Greatest Generation.”

“You can get 2,000, 3,000 years of experience by reading,” Skelton said.