Finished a few days ago.
I reccomend this book.
This book was challenging to me because I am no officer, being only occasionally a leader I feel that leadership is a weakness on my part . Reading this book reinforces for me gladness that I am not a General, be they ever so smart they are prone to be judged harshly by their bosses in the military and outside it.
Only a few people have what it takes to be a really exelent General, this book examines how our nation has succeeded and failed to find these people from the Thirtys till the most recent decade.
The author makes a good case for the idea that General Marshal did a good job of pruning the Army prior to WWII, and that not such a good job was done choosing who to put in charge since then, especially when an innefective general was not fired.
This book includes a lot of interesting information about WWII, Korea, Vietnam and Iraq that I hadn't seen elesewhere. Interesting from a historical perspective and interesting how in some cases the credit for success or failure was misplaced. The Author pronounces judgement boldly with the advantage of hindsight, ruthlessly cutting some Generals reputation and praising others.
The book comes to conclusions and makes reccomendations for the process of choosing generals and educating officers. I hope that our national leadership takes these ideas into consideration as they choose and educate the upcoming generation of top ranking officers , because ,as Rumsfield observed , you go to war with the Army you have , not the army you wished you had.
The way that Generals are chosen is very important and it is worth observing how it was that General Marshal succeeded at it so well as to be singuar in our history.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Generals-American-Military-Command/dp/1594204047
