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In association with
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Books Recommended By Graduates to New Officers
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On the 14th of March, 2001, Bill Schwartz '59 made a request for assistance
to all graduates who monitored the West Point Forum (A restricted list
server operated by WP-ORG for graduate communications). His message follows
below:
| "I want to give the First Classman I mentor a graduation gift that
will be meaningful and/or professionally useful. His parents have already
given him a cadet sword so that's out. It also rules out me giving him
a saber, which was my original inclination.
Does anyone have any ideas? One thought I had was a set of books for
his professional library but I'm at a loss as to what would be appropriate.
The firstie is branching Infantry, and wants to go the airborne-ranger
route.
Any suggestions would be appreciated." |
This set off a series of e-mail communications about appropriate gifts
for a graduating cadet. Many recommendations were made. Some graduates
suggested a commemorative Colt .45 pistol with engraving; another graduate
suggested a custom Randall made
knife . Most of the suggestions were geared towards the acquisition
of a professional reading library. Most graduates agreed that over the
course of a career, the professional reading library would represent the
best possible gift with the greatest impact on the future officer's career.
Suggestions for the initial list of books were received from posts by the
following graduates: Aimee Bateman '00, Scott Abram '98, Ed Cox '98,
Mike Lyman '87, Bill Woods, '87, Steve Elliott '86, Michael McGurk '85,
Karson Snyder '85, Mike Havey '68, Lewis Higinbotham '62, Jim Strachan
'61,Bill Schwartz '59 and the Forum's resident expert military historian,
John Sloan '55. These recommendations span 45 years of separation of
graduates. They reflect opinions from recently commissioned second lieutenants,
to retired former officers and combat veterans. Most of the books on the
list have received a minimum Amazon feedback rating of four out of five,
with many of the books receiving a five star rating. These books collectively
will build an extraordinary professional library for any military officer
and West Point graduate. We hope you enjoy these suggestions.
In the near future, we hope to be able to provide a reviewing and ranking
system so that grads can further refine this list on a continual basis.
Please let us know if we have missed a book by using the link at the bottom
of the page.
For display purposes, we've broken this list into sizeable chunks of 9 to view (in no particular order).
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