The Chief of Staff of the Air Force, General Norton A. Schwartz, updated his reading list in an e-mail to all Airmen with three additional reads: The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power; Thinking about America’s Defense: An Analytical Memoir and; Not a Good Day to Die: The Untold Story of Operation Anaconda ( See review here ).
Although I haven’t read the first two, I’m reading Not a Good Day to Die by Sean Naylor right now while in A-CST training and agree that it’s well worth the read. It’s somewhat of a line by line account from various sources of combat, joint command and control, personnel recovery, the give-and-take that is staff work and the inner opinions of leaders in the military. There’s quite a few references to our fellow Airmen in AFSOC as well. The book discussed leadership and how close our forces were to dealing with “disaster” in Afghanistan — all in all, great read so far.
Sean Naylor wrote on Strategty Page: “In January of 2002 American intelligence became aware of a sizable concentration of Al Qaeda fighters in the Shahikot valley in Southeastern Afghanistan. Planning began for an operation to strike at the Al Qaeda troops. But the tribes in this part of Afghanistan were considerably less friendly to America than the Northern Alliance that had played such a vital part in defeat of the Taliban in 2001. Indeed, the lack of reliable Afghan fighters in that part of the country was partly to blame for the failure to trap the Al Qaeda forces in Tora Bora. Thus the decision was made to use American infantry for the first time against the terrorists.”
General Schwartz said about the update: “Dominating the air, land, sea, space, and cyberspace guarantees the security of our Nation. As adaptive warfighters and global thinkers on the Joint team, we must continually look for ways to expand our horizons. One way to do this is by reflecting on the lessons of history. With this in mind, I recommend three books from the 2009 Reading List for your professional development.”
