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Photo Book:
The Marines
A magnificent word and picture book on Marine Corps history. This coffee table volume with over 600 photos and illustrations and superbly written and edited text is the ultimate book on the history of the U.S. Marine Corps. A collectors item, indeed.

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Spiritual Book:
The Marine's Bible
Burgundy leather with side tab closure. This is a very handsome leather bible in Holman's Christian Standard translation. Special helps, prayers, and encouragements for Marines is contained in the bible. The insignia the Marine Corps is nicely printed on the cover.

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Excellent Book for Parents:
Keeping Faith: A Father-Son Story About Love and the United States Marine Corps
by John Schaeffer, Frank Schaeffer

The story of a young man having a growth experience by joining the military is a classic scenario, and John Schaeffer does justice to his take on it in his account of personal transformation from high-school graduate to U.S. Marines corporal. I have parents who are recommending this book for help with bootcamp as well as with deployments. It's a book of supporting your Recruit and Your Marine.

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Book:
U.S. Marine Guidebook of Essential Subjects
This repected book is used by all Marines. Chapters include Marine Corps history, Code of Conduct, close order drill, first aid, rifle marksmanship, land navigation and much more. Includes excellent photographs and illustrations.

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Book:
Marine Book: A Portrait of America's Military Elite
This glossy, well-designed and -photographed (by the author) book should bring a proud glow to the collective cheek of the Corpsand make an ideal gift for any current or former Marine. Lawliss gives a brisk rundown of Marine history, with handy checklists of battles and engagements, describes the training (familiar from many movies) but devotes his most eloquent passages to the Marine mystique. (An officer, asked if Marines are a mirror of society, replies that, no, they think of themselves as better than society.) Inevitably, in a book done with its wholehearted cooperation, the Corps comes off looking splendid: better trained, educated and motivated today than ever, according to Lawliss. This is not a book where one can expect to find a serious examination of the Marines' historical role as the nation's imperial policemen overseas, "protecting America's interests" in Central America, for instance, in Lawliss's words. But as the valentine it is, it is well doneand has a delightful extra in the skillful line drawings of notable Marine heroes by Richard H. Brown.

Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Book:
Into the Crucible
In this chronicle of the making of an elite fighting force renown for its tough training, Woulfe reveals what goes on during the "Crucible Event", the 54 grueling hours that complete the process of turning recruits into Marines. 24 photos.

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Book:
Corps Values
Call it Robert Fulghum by way of John Wayne... In 1953, Zell Miller was as low as he could get. He'd dropped out of college after being made to feel inferior because of his "hillbilly" background and wound up in jail one weekend after getting drunk on moonshine and driving his car into a ditch. In an effort to turn his life around, he signed up for marine boot camp. The experience changed his life, and he remains convinced that the values he learned during his 90 days at Parris Island are "the only basis upon which diversity can coexist with commonality and all people can pursue individual goals for themselves while contributing to the general well-being and advancement of society as a whole." These simple values, from neatness and punctuality to discipline and loyalty, are for Miller the basis of a strong civil society. Although some readers may find some of his notions--such as his frustration at seeing kids wear caps backwards--a bit extreme, Miller reminds us that any organization that pumped out men like Bernard Shaw, Don Imus, Ted Williams, and Art Buchwald must have something going for it.

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Book:
Boot
It's America's toughest Boot Camp, 88 days of drills, inspections, rifle practices, war games, grueling physical exercise and a regimen that separates the men from the boys. Boot gives the inside story of basic training in the Marines, America's fiercest fighting force.

The author explains that because of legislature, Marine Corps boot camp is not what it used to be and that the drill instructors are limited in how they train. Some reviews complained that the book compared 'old days' training with the restrictions imposed on drill instructors today, but most of the reviews were positive. If you want to know more about what happens in bootcamp, then this could be the book for you.

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Book:
Heroes: U.S. Marine Corps Medal of Honor Winners
The United States Marine Corps Medal of Honor, awarded for outstanding courage and sacrifice in combat, is the greatest honor a marine can hope to attain. In over two hundred years of Marine Corps existence, only 293 marines have received this honor. These are their stories. From the American Revolution to the Persian Gulf, this comprehensive book features detailed information on 293 Marine Corps Medal of Honor winners, with 150 in-depth accounts of those who demonstrated the courage and determination which are the cornerstones of the United States Marine Corps-in a compelling chronicle of those who have truly earned the rank of "heroes."

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Coffee Table Book:
USMC: A Complete History (U.S. Military...
Bound in camouflage cloth and thick enough to stop an anti-tank shell, this exhaustive chronology of the Marine Corps' 227-year existence will appeal to veterans and regimental historians alike. The detailed entries cover desultory peacetime action, administrative minutiae and desperate battles in the same terse military jargon: on January 28, 1922, for example, "Marines assist in rescue work after the roof of a theater collapses in Washington," while the entry for March 1, 1944, at the height of the Iwo Jima battle ("Marine aircraft participate in TF 58 strikes on Okinawa"), includes the laconic note that "VMSB 332 is redesignated VMTB 332." The march of dates and acronyms is interrupted by engaging two-page vignettes that feature loving descriptions of rifles and machine guns, tales of heroism and profiles of prominent Marines, including the "irrepressible" Major General Smedley Butler, who later soured on the Corps and denounced expeditions he had led in the Caribbean as an imperialist "racket." Innumerable photos and reproductions of paintings by Marine artists provide sometimes gritty, sometimes sentimental glimpses of Marine life and combat. Scholars will find the chronology of real value, while the trove of Marine lore will spark reminiscences among leathernecks.

Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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The Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps is one of the most famous military units in the world. The Marine Corps tells the story behind a unit that has seen action across the world in its long and illustrious history. The book begins with the Corps' origins during the colonial period, when battalions of American Marines were raised to fight alongside their British counterparts. It was not until 1798, however, that the Corps was finally created by an Act of Congress. The Corps has fought in Central America, World War I, World War II (where it carried the brunt of the Allied effort in the Pacific), Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, and the Gulf. This book describes the full combat record of the Marines and details the Corps' organization, equipment, uniforms, and insignia. Illustrated with black and white and color photographs, and with an authoritative text, The Marine Corps: Three Centuries of Glory is a definitive history of one of America's top fighting units.

Book:
Medal of Honor: Profiles of America's Military Heroes from the Civil War to the Present
The Congressional Medal of Honor, established during the Civil War, pays tribute to a person who has "distinguished himself conspicuously by gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty." Washington Literacy Council board member Mikaelian spotlights 11 of the 3,456 soldiers who have received this legendary honor, while 60 Minutes' Wallace supplies historical context with his introduction and brief, general commentaries on various U.S. wars. The book's lively vignettes not only describe the battles faced by the men (and one woman), but also trace the ways the Medal affected their later lives. The book profiles Hiroshi Miyamura, a Korean War marine who fought back Chinese soldiers when he and fellow troops were isolated in a mountain pass on the Chinese-Korean border; as well as Dwight Johnson, a celebrated Vietnam vet deeply conflicted about his role in the war and especially about his recruitment of fellow young black men into the armed services. The practice of Mary Edwards Walker, a Civil War doctor who is the only woman to have won the Medal, fell into controversy after the war, leading the government to revoke her Medal toward the end of her life when she was an isolated eccentric and, literally, a sideshow curiosity. This absorbing set of accounts should appeal to military history enthusiasts and anyone interested in the heroic exploits of ordinary Americans.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Book:
War Letters : Extraordinary Correspondence from American Wars
"I've cast out my razor, divorced my soap, buried my manners, signed my socks to a two-year contract, and proved that you don't have to come in out of the rain." So wrote Corporal Thomas P. Noonan from Vietnam, proving that humor doesn't fail even in war. Noonan's letter is just one of over 50,000 that letter-enthusiast Andrew Carroll (Letters of a Nation) received after Abigail Van Buren publicized his Legacy Project in her Dear Abby column. Out of this treasure trove he selected 150, spanning 130 years of warfare from the Civil War to Bosnia. While there are letters from such notables as General William Tecumseh Sherman and even Julia Childs, most were written by uncelebrated but dearly loved soldiers from barracks, trenches, and flooded foxholes and by combat journalists, nurses, and family members on the home front.

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Book:
Letters of a Nation: A Collection of Extraordinary American Letters
This book is easy to read and interesting. The editors notes in front of and behind almost every letter really make the book that little bit more. I found all of the letters interesting and many of them quite moving. Many of the letters illuminated subjects about which i was familiar but did not know that little part of the story. I recommend this book for any and every one. You do not have to be American (although much of the information is perhaps from an American perspective) to feel the things that are brought forth by the reading of these letters.