Email to a young man about to deploy to Iraq

Sometimes we can't do much but we still must do what we can.  Our friend returned safely a little over a year later.

Photo from www.history.army.mil

It was great fun talking with you today. In case you need some ideas for reading here's a list of books I've found very interesting over the years. Thank you for your service to our country. Keep in touch. Be well.

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, a novel that is so close to memoir I'll list it with the non-fiction

Dispatches by Michael Herr

Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam by Frances FitzGerald

Imperial Hubris by Michael Scheuer

Clash of Civilizations by Samuel P. Huntington

Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World by Bruce Schneier

Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose

Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond

Collapse by Jared Diamond

The Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond

From Beirut to Jerusalem by Thomas L. Friedman

The Lexus and the Olive Tree by Thomas L. Friedman

The World Is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell

1776 by David McCullough

Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin

The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris

Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris

African Game Trails by Theodore Roosevelt

The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan

Longitude by Dava Sobel

Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

The original Dune saga by Frank Herbert

The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings saga by J.R.R. Tolkien

Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons

Endymion by Dan Simmons

Rise of Endymion by Dan Simmons

Ilium by Dan Simmons

Olympos by Dan Simmons

Sundiver by David Brin

Startide Rising by David Brin

The Uplift War by David Brin

Brightness Reef by David Brin

Infinity's Shore by David Brin

Heaven's Reach by David Brin

The Peace War by Vernor Vinge

Marooned in Realtime by Vernor Vinge

A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge

A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge

The Forge of God by Greg Bear

An Anvil of Stars by Greg Bear

Neuromancer by William Gibson

Burning Chrome by William Gibson

Count Zero by William Gibson

Mona Lisa Overdrive by William Gibson

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson