Let's start with a fun topic - John! Here are some new words he is saying:
- Lunch
- Walk
- Shoes
This little guy is such fun! He enjoys wrestling with his Dada and tickling my feet. Of course, I do my fair share (and then some!) of tickling him, too! He's quite ticklish.
Today we took him to see Santa at the local daycare center. This was his first meeting with the jolly old fellow. You can see he didn't like it much! :-(
But, by the end of our visit, he was on better terms with Santa, even saying "Santa" as he met a "friendlier" version of Old Saint Nick.
Good news on the Olmsted program front: I found out this week that I made the cut at the service (USMC) level! I have no idea how many folks submitted applications, but according to the message I got, eight of us were nominated by the Marine Corps to the Olmsted Foundation. Now we will undergo an additional screening process that will determine which of us will be allowed to undergo the outstanding language training and overseas study regimen that is so unique to this program. Traditionally, the foundation picks three of the nominated Marine candidates to become Olmsted Scholars, so wish me luck! Last week I said that a administrative message called a MARADMIN would announce the nominees and I provided a link to the web page where they are posted; last I checked, the message had not yet been posted. The MARADMIN is the "public" announcement; obviously, the message I received was in a different forum.
When I went to worship services last week, the pastor had listed in the weekly bulletin his reading list, i.e. what he is reading now. For some time, I had been considering doing something like that in this forum, too - maybe somebody out there is interested. At any rate, the pastor updates his reading list the first of each month, so I am going to emulate him. What follows is what I am currently reading. (Or listening to, as the case may be - I listen to audiobooks during my morning and evening commute, a strategy that I have found to be tremendously useful over the past 4 months of working across the island from where I live. Audiobooks are denoted with an (A) after their titles. Authors are also noted.
- Better, Atul Gawande
- The March Up: Taking Baghdad with the 1st Marine Division, Bing West and Major General Ray L. Smith
- COBRA II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq (A), Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor (Note: when I took a graduate school course at Hawaii Pacific University last summer on the Korean War, the instructor was Dr. Allan R. Millett, a retired Marine colonel and renowned military historian in his own right (see his bio here). COBRA II had recently been published and he told us that the book was "about 98% right" with regard to its subject matter, according to contacts of his, the likes of whom, in my estimation, probably would know what they are talking about. I am over 2/3 of the way through the book and I have found it to be very interesting.)
Now I must say a few words about why I am reading what I am reading. Mr. Gawande, who also wrote a book called Complications a few years ago that I read, is a surgeon who writes very well (he writes shorter pieces for The New Yorker) on medicine and being a surgeon. Each chapter is a vignette on some aspect of the aforementioned topics. I really enjoyed Complications and had Barb read it after I was done. I plan to do the same with Better when I finish it. It's not hard to understand why she would be interested in a book about medicine, since she is a registered nurse. But why me? I can't say exactly. Those who have known me for several years, including when I was attending the University of Nebraska and working at Lincoln Benefit Life / Allstate Financial Services a few years back, know that I considered various medical fields as career options at various stages of my way through my undergraduate curriculum in exercise science. I just find it interesting, that's about the best I can say. I can't rule out someday perhaps indulging in some way my interest in medicine or a related field (for instance, attending some sort of medical-type school or training), but that is for later. Plus, as I mentioned, Gawande is a heck of a writer. I would probably find anything he wrote interesting, regardless of the topic.
It may be easier, given my current profession, to explain the next two selections, as that they deal with aspects of the fight that our nation is currently engaged in out in the Middle East. Anyone who wears the uniform today should be interested in these books and books like them, if you ask me. This is our recent military history. My strategy on the topic of Operation Iraqi Freedom (or OIF, in the common parlance of the military) is bombarding myself with numerous works on the subject simultaneously / near-simultaneously. I have quite a queue of books / audiobooks lined up to replace the current OIF works when I finish with them (see below for a list), and when I get a few more of these digested, I aspire to write a review essay covering all of them. Whether or not I can make a coherent piece remains to be seen. Maybe I can find a venue that would publish it - time will tell. (Aside from self-publishing right here or on Amazon.com - that's too easy!)
I came to the study / reading topic of OIF by following the chronological thread from al-Qaeda (AQ for short) before 9/11 (I listened to Lawrence Wright's 2007 Pulitzer Prize-winning The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 last month; and in 2005, while living in the Northern Virginia area (anyone who has done that and commuted by automobile can relate to having plenty of time to crank through audiobooks) I listened to George Crile's Charlie Wilson's War, which not about AQ per se, but it is about Afghanistan in the 1980's and how the US financed and armed the mujahidin fighters against the Soviets), to the 9/11 attacks (I've also read much of The 9/11 Report - haven't been able to finish it yet) and the subsequent Afghan War (Operation Enduring Freedom, or OEF for short) detailed in Bob Woodward's Bush at War which I listened to last month as well. I've also listened to most of Tommy Franks' American Soldier, which covers the range of his long military career, but focuses mainly on his tenure as the commander of United States Central Command in the 9/11 and post-9/11 eras. Now, I am working on OIF materials. Here are the additional OIF-related materials I plan to consume as time permits:
- In the Company of Soldiers, Rick Atkinson
- The Iraq War: A Military History, Williamson Murray and Major General Robert H. Scales, Jr.
- With the 1st Marine Division in Iraq, 2003, LtCol Michael S. Groen, et al (the principal author, it should be noted, was my battalion commander here in Hawaii for a year)
- On Point: The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom, COL Gregory Fontenot, U.S. Army (Ret.), et al
A colleague of mine who knows I am an avid reader asked me recently, after I told him what I was reading now, why I am reading what I am. My reply was this: I think we are now far enough away from (in a chronological sense) the events of 9/11, the Afghan War that followed, and the initial invasion of Iraq to begin obtaining the real lessons of these events. I hope to be able to distill some of this out in whatever I might end up writing in response to the consumption of all these relatively new submissions on the given topics.
If you're wondering where I get my audiobooks from, see the links on the right side of the page. Audible.com is the place. I'm not making a commercial endorsement, I'm just stating fact. Their system works out great for me - I can download entire books, load them into iTunes and store them on my iPod (again, not a commercial endorsement, just the brand of my digital audio), then use a commercially purchased "mount" in my car to cradle the device while I drive and listen. Like I said, it works great for me, I couldn't be happier with the setup I'm using. I hope to use this setup, in conjunction with my daily commute for the next ~6-8 months to knock out many more books!
As a final note on reading, the above only concerns the books that I am working on. I will write another time about the periodicals that I regularly read and other means I use to obtain professional or personal reading materials. Trust me, the list and rationale there is no less lengthy than this installment!
Finally, here is a new video of John clowning around in our back yard saying a version of "Hello". He makes me laugh - I hope he does it for you, too!
Aloha,
Gary, Barb and John
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