MAKE YOUR BED

Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life... And Maybe The World by Admiral William H. McRaven (U.S. Navy Retired)   130 pages

Reviewed by Rae C.

I never understood the military's obsession with making the bed.  I've asked a number of veterans and enlisted military personnel about this, and I've gotten the same few answers: "Everything is important in the military.  Everything has to be done right." And "it's the first thing you do and you have to do it right."

But McRaven really made it clear: it's the first thing you do in the morning, and if you do it and do it well, it sets a precedent for accomplishing throughout the day.  (And if you have a bad day, you come home to a nicely made bed at least.)

If you want the motivation, just read the speech at the end of the book.  All of the points are covered.  If you are interested in Navy Seal training and anecdotes about McRaven's life, read the book.  It's a fast (under an hour), easy read, and it is motivating, but there's not much meat to it.  It's mostly just "strong survive, life isn't fair, don't give up."  But I did enjoy reading it.

Here is my favorite quote:

"...we both wanted to be SEALs so badly that nothing in the water that night was going to stop us.  If we had to fight off the sharks, then we were both prepared to do so.  Our goal, which we believed to be honorable and noble, gave us courage, and courage is a remarkable quality.  Nothing and nobody can stand in your way.  Without it, others will define your path forward.  Without it, you are at the mercy of life's temptations.  Without courage, men will be ruled by tyrants and despots.  Without courage, no great society can flourish.  Without courage, the bullies of the world rise up. With it, you can accomplish any goal.  With it, you can defy and defeat evil."

DISCIPLINE EQUALS FREEDOM FIELD MANUAL

Discipline Equals Freedom by Jocko Willink   199 pages

https://slpl.bibliocommons.com/item/show/1399204116

reviewed by Rae C.

This is a great book if you have been reading motivation and self help books and you just want to start doing!  A lot of caveats though, for the average reader.

He's kind of crazy and goes off on some tangents- for example, in the middle of his (excellent) arguments for getting into Jiu jitsu, he goes off on a rant about firearms.

He uses a lot of battle and war metaphors, which can be tiresome. He recommends working out even when you have the flu. And I'd need a whole blog to get into my arguments about the so-called "paleo" diet (our early hominid ancestors were not eating bacon and butter, and fruits predate vegetables and are still a staple for peoples living in undeveloped areas).

He also says things like "some scientists say discipline declines with use" (or something like that).  I can find no evidence on line of any scientists saying this, but perhaps it was something along the lines of "once you do something to the point that it becomes a habit, it's not discipline anymore" which I did find online.

The thing I loved about this book was it was just so direct and kind of like having a Navy Seal screaming at you "Just Go After It!" And "How do you get up early? Set your alarm and get up when it goes off!" And "How do you work out everyday?  You just work out everyday!"

Basically, you begin to feel like you should put the book down and do some burpees and go to bed early.  He's right that a lot of people spend too much time planning and not enough time just doing. 

Recommended for anyone in a slump that can handle the white typeface on black pages, and the excessively macho and somewhat disturbing imagery.

Battleship Yamato

Battleship Yamato: Of War, Beauty, and Irony by Jan Morris, 96 pages

The Yamato was the largest and most powerful battleship ever built.  She played a minor role in two battles before being ordered, in the final months of World War II, to launch a Special - suicide - Attack against the American fleet assaulting Okinawa.  This mission was not expected to have any success, rather, it was intended to distract the Americans and provide an opening for a simultaneous kamikaze sortie.  The Yamato was tracked from the moment she left the Inland Sea and sunk barely halfway to her destination.  Over two thousand Japanese sailors died with her.  The attacking American planes suffered minimal losses.

In her brief, lyrical account, Jan Morris describes the Yamato as a beautiful ship, "a Dreadnought of Dreadnoughts", but obsolete before she was even finished.  The pride of the Imperial Japanese Navy, she was too valuable to be risked in battle, and so conserved until the war was lost, then sacrificed in a futile gesture.  Sacrificed with her were the imperial ambitions of the homeland whose name she bore.

The Port Chicago 50

The Port Chicago 50 by Steve Sheinkin, 200 pages

This book is an account of the actions of fifty African American Naval men accused of mutiny during World War II.  At that time, all branches of the Armed Forces were segregated and African Americans were only allowed to be on board ships as mess attendants.  The group of people in Port Chicago were responsible for loading explosives on board ships.  After an explosion destroys a ship, killing 320 people, several of the men were afraid to go back to loading, feeling that the cause of the explosion was directly related to some of the unsafe practices being employed by the Naval officers.  In the end, fifty men refused to go back to work and were court martialed and tried for mutiny.  This is a case that I knew nothing about before reading this book.  It was well written and clear and showed not only what was happening with the trial but also the discrimination African Americans were subjected to in both the Armed Forced and the country in general.  I would definitely recommend this to any kid or teen interested in reading about civil rights.