Military Officer - November 2007 - (Page 84)

memberbooks For a complete description of these member books, log on to www.moaa.org/november2007, and click on Member Books. CONWAY [CONTINUED FROM PAGE 83] NONFICTION How to Use the Internet to Advertise, Promote, and Market Your Business or Web Site — With Little or No Money. By Lt. Cmdr. Bruce C. Brown, USCG. Atlantic Publishing Group Inc. ISBN 0-910627-57-6. The Ultimate Guide to Search Engine Marketing: Pay Per Click Advertising Secrets Revealed. By Lt. Cmdr. Bruce C. Brown, USCG. Atlantic Publishing Group Inc. ISBN 978-0-910627-99-3. Live Fast, Love Hard: The Faron Young Story. By Capt. Diane Diekman, USN. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-03248-6. The Final Voyage of the Central America, 1857. By Maj. Normand E. Klare, USAF-Ret. Klare-Taylor Publishing Co. ISBN 0-97644-03-0-X. Herndon and Gibbon: Lieutenants, United States Navy. By Maj. Normand E. Klare, USAF-Ret. Klare-Taylor Publishing Co. ISBN 0-9764403-1-8. The Famed Green Dragons: The Four Stack APDs. By CWO Curtis Clark, USN-Ret. Turner Publishing Co. ISBN 1-56311-475-5 (VII). From Chatham to Osyka: Journey of the Mixon Ancestors. By Lt. Col. Paul S. Mixon, USAF-Ret. ISBN 1-889-93122-5. Strange but True Facts of the Civil War. By Lt. Col. Patrick M. Reynolds, USA-Ret. Taylor Trade Publishing. ISBN 978-1589793620. Riding With the Wizard of the Saddle: A Guided Tour of General Nathan Bedford Forrest’s Career. By Capt. Brent Lokey, USAF-Ret. The Dixie Press. ISBN 9-781888-366075. A Time to Lead for Duty, Honor and Country. By. Gen. Wesley K. Clark, USA-Ret. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9781-4039-8474-6. The Korean War: The Essential Bibliography. By Col. Allan R. Millett, USMC-Ret. Potomac Books Inc. ISBN 978-1-57488-976-5. You Live! You Die! Who Decides? A Textbook of Life and Death. By Rear Adm. Joseph H. Miller, USNR-Ret., M.D. AuthorHouse. ISBN 978-1-4259-7571-5. We appeal to people based on the fact that once a Marine, you’re a Marine for life. You are among America’s elite warriors. That dress blue uniform goes with the task. That’s the kind of kids we want. We have in the past issued partial blue uniforms: a set of trousers, a white cover, and white gloves. It varied. But it’s been a long time since we’ve had the whole set in the seabag. Are you having to take fewer high school graduates and more folks needing moral waivers? The DOD standard is 90-percent high school graduates. The Marine Corps standard is 95 [percent]. We’re recruiting 96 percent. We’re getting the quality we want. We do issue a lot of waivers. I’ll tell you why: We ask hard questions. We’re the only service that sits a young American down and asks, “Have you ever used drugs?” If they answer, “Yes, I experimented,” we can still take them, but they will require a waiver. Our waiver percentages are way high compared to others, but it’s not because these people are criminals. It’s that we’re asking hard questions. Recruit quality is essential, because being a Marine means joining a force that is top quality. Some recruiters did come to me and said that to get higher numbers we’ve got to open up the envelope and that may mean fewer high school graduates. I said, “I’m sorry. We’re not going to do that.” We’re not going to drop quality, because that stops us from being special. We’ve lost more than 800 Marines in Iraq. Members of Congress, even Republicans, doubt we should stay there much longer. Given that, what do you tell Marines about whether this is worth everything that is being sacrificed? It is tough. As someone compelled by law to offer my best military advice, my ﬁrm belief is that we are engaged with terrorists. We may have initially been ﬁghting Iraqis, and the things we went in for are not the reasons we’re there now. We are there engaged in the ﬁrst battles — both in Iraq and Afghanistan — of this long war. If you win the ﬁrst battles, the war is shorter. If you lose, you cede momentum, resources, and recruitment to your enemy. That’s the jeopardy in pulling off this thing before we can say we and our Iraqi counterparts are having a level of success sufﬁcient to reduce force numbers. So my view is we need to take care of business while we’re there instead of having to come back to something that, in some ways, would be far more grotesque than what we see right now. So we stay as long as it takes, or do you see a point where the patience of Americans will be exhausted? We will do what the people want us to do. I just wish the people better understood what’s at risk here. I write a letter every time we lose a Marine. I’ve been to too doggone many memorial services. But this is a war. People do get killed in war. Our losses are very small compared to what we have lost in other wars. I know it’s a 24-hour news cycle, and people see [the violence] every day in the media. We all should be conscious of it. But we also should ask ourselves, “How important is it that we succeed as a nation?” There is a bit of a disconnect and, as a military man, I ﬁnd that to be unfortunate. But I’m concerned that we look at it not singly, with regard to Iraq or Afghanistan, but in the context of the ﬁrst battles of a long war. We need to do the right thing in those nations, in the region, and also for the beneﬁt of our country 20 years from now. MO FICTION Eagles Don’t Die. By Col. Ronald L. Chiste, USA-Ret. AuthorHouse. ISBN 978-1-4343-1006-4. DD 891. By Capt. John Denham, USN-Ret. Xlibris Corp. ISBN 978-1-4257-2470-2. For submission information, see page 18. 84 MILITARY OFFICER NOVEMBER 2007 http://www.moaa.org/november2007

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Military Officer - November 2007

Military Officer - November 2007 Contents From the Editor President’s Page Your Views MOAA Directory Rapid Fire Washington Scene Chapters in Action Financial Forum Ask the Doctor Cover Story: Commanding the Corps With Love, From Home Financial Guidebook Financial Tuneups Banking on Your Time Pages of History MOAA Scholarship Recipients Faces of MOAA MOAA Scholarship Donors Member Books Advertising Index MOAA Calendar Sounding Taps MOAA Member Services Encore

Military Officer - November 2007

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