More about reading

Still on the plane...read for as long as I could, until my eyes started to cross, then took a quick power nap, and now we are about 30 minutes out from our first stop. I want to write a bit more about reading, if that is OK with you...

Hearing no objections, let's begin, shall we? I have been reading on this flight a great periodical called The American Interest. It came into existence not too long ago, I believe on the heels of a irreconcilable "difference of opinion" amongst the staff of another publication, called The National Interest (you may have heard of it; it is fairly well-known amongst policy circles). After this difference of opinion, Francis Fukuyama, known for his 1990's treatise The End of History and the Last Man dealing with post-Cold War strategy, broke away and started up this new periodical. I never read TNI, but this new periodical caught my eye at a Borders store about a year ago while I was in Norther Virginia on business. The cover graphic showed a downcast and defeated-looking presumably American soldier stumbling across sand dunes (OK, I get it, Iraq War reference) and indicated there were feature articles by Robert D. Kaplan (of The Atlantic Monthly fame and who has recently authored books on the US military and US strategy and power titled Imperial Grunts and another more recent book that is its sequel, whose title escapes me just now), Joseph Joffe (not really familiar with his work), and the one that really caught my eye, "dueling" pieces by General David Petraeus and Ralph Peters (retired Army soldier and noted opinionist on military and national defense issues, columnist for a major New York daily newspaper, and prolific author whose recent works include Beyond Baghdad and Wars of Blood and Faith) on a topic I am quite interested in, the utility of graduate education for military personnel.

As you may know, I have a vested interest in graduate education. Essentially since I arrived in Hawaii about two and a half years ago, I have been either planning for or taking graduate school classes (I have had very limited success in making much progress, in a dilemma quite familiar to probably just about all working adults who try to attend graduate school on nights and weekends - time is scarce. I had the added challenge of making a pair of deployments during this time, further explaining the small amount I was able to complete. I did one graduate school class at Hawaii Pacific University in their Master of Arts in Diplomacy and Military Studies. It was a history course covering the Korean War, notable for the prestige of the professor, Dr. Allan Millett, a highly regarded military historian who spent most of his academic career teaching at The Ohio State University. He also retired as a Colonel in the Marine Reserve, so he certainly "knows the smell of gunpowder", so to speak. I really enjoyed the class (Dr. Millett is an outstanding lecturer, one of the best I have had) and learned a great deal, to boot (my knowledge level on the Korean War was pretty basic before that class in the summer of 2006). At any rate, my struggle to fit graduate school into my life has been taken care of with my selection for the Olmsted Scholar Program - in about a year, it will be my job to go to graduate school!

Back to the articles on graduate education. General Petraeus, himself an example of an officer who has been afforded the chance to attend civilian graduate school while on active duty - he has a PhD from Princeton - understandable advocates for the benefits that accrue the officer selected for such a course of full-time civilian study. Peters sees this as a waste, time that would be better spent doing purely military training, or even better, deploying to the fight! After all, allowing officers to go to school takes them "out of the line". Well, this is true, if you are attending grad school full-time, you can't very well deploy into combat, but I agree with Petraeus, I think the product the services get back on the tail end of the graduate school process is a better officer for their education received AND the experiences and interaction with fellow students, faculty, and their school communities.

That's my position on the topic now. I'll let you know in 3 years (when I am finishing graduate school) if I change my mind.

GJS