Sublime

David Martin and John Walcott’s Best Laid Plans: The Inside Story of America’s War Against Terrorism (Martin and Walcott 1988).

In 1962, Barbara Tuchman published The Guns of August, an account of the first ninety days of World War I. It’s the best book on management—and, especially, mismanagement—I’ve ever read. The most basic conclusion I drew from her book was that, if you adopt a reasonable strategy, as opposed to waiting for an optimum strategy, and stick with it, you’

“He’s used trimix on some shallower dives this year. He says he’s ready. And I’ll be diving with him,” Yurga replied. Kohl adjusted his mask, bit down on his regulator, and flopped sideways off the gunwale. Chatterton and Kohler could not believe what happened next. Rather than bob to the surface as most divers do after the splash, Kohl plummeted l

“A ticket to sure fire danger and excitement in the most explosive form is furnished every man who volunteers for the Seabee demolition units,” said a military publication in October 1943. When it is over “he is an expert in destruction, qualified to blow up everything from a milk bottle to a man.” So qualified, each graduate was assigned to a six-

Except for some magnificent excursions into the deserts of Libya and up the slopes of Chapultepec, the US Marine Corps—from the American Revolution to the American Civil War—was mostly an indentured adjunct of the blue-water American Navy. In peace, a ramrod insurance against mutiny; in battle, mast-clinging marksmen intended to replicate Admiral N