The Soldier’s Load
by S.L.A. Marshall
This book has been required reading by Marines for over 20 years. It examines what some might consider a mundane subject (what a soldier carries, and should and should not be expected to carry into battle) in a way that says a lot about our culture and the American way of war. Marshall’s observations may seem elementary, but the fact that he had to set them down on paper just a few years after WWII is proof positive that the minions of political correctness were alive and well fifty years ago, and that institutional memory is definately of the short term variety. Anyone who leads troops and has not read this book should be dismissed from the service.
