ralston has read:

Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick

The Art of War by Antoine Henri De Jomini

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

In the Company of Soldiers: A Chronicle of Combat by Rick Atkinson

Summons of the Trumpet: U.S.-Vietnam in Perspective by Dave R. Palmer

Citizen Soldiers: The U. S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany by Stephen E. Ambrose

The Boys' Crusade: The American Infantry in Northwestern Europe, 1944-1945 by Paul Fussell

Common Sense Training: A Working Philosophy for Leaders by Arthur Collins

Nineteen Stars: A Study in Military Character and Leadership by Edgar Puryear

Small Unit Leadership: A Commonsense Approach by Dandridge M. Malone

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

WAR by Sebastian Junger

One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer by Nathaniel C. Fick

Once a Warrior King: Memories of an Officer in Vietnam by David Donovan

Hiroshima by John Hersey

The Warriors: Reflections on Men in Battle by J. Glenn Gray

Flags of Our Fathers by James Bradley

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History by John M. Barry

Strategy in the Missile Age by Bernard Brodie

The U.S. Army and the Korean War: South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu by Roy E. Appleman

Certain Victory: The U.S. Army in the Gulf War by Robert Scales

Street Without Joy: The French Debacle In Indochina by Bernard B. Fall

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

The Old Army: A Portrait of the American Army in Peacetime, 1784-1898 by Edward M. Coffman

The Long Gray Line: The American Journey of West Point's Class of 1966 by Rick Atkinson

With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa by E.B. Sledge

The Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer

Embattled Courage: The Experience of Combat in the American Civil War by Gerald Linderman

Battle Studies: Ancient and Modern Battle by Ardant du Picq

The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt and commented:

Fascinating book, especially the first half.

The Killer Angels: A Novel by Michael Shaara

Red Badge Of Courage: An Episode Of The American Civil War by Stephen Crane

All Quiet On The Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque and commented:

One of my all-time favorite books

The Command of the Air by Giulio Douhet

Making the Corps by Thomas E. Ricks

The Constitution of the United States of America by founding united states (author) ; fathers

The Defense of Hill 781 by James R. McDonough

The Defense Of Duffer's Drift by Ernest Dunlop Swinton

Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War by Karl Marlantes

What It Is Like To Go To War by Karl Marlantes

Platoon Leader - A Memoir of Command in Combat by James McDonough and commented:

I've read this several times over the years.

Acts of War: Behavior of Men in Battle by Richard Holmes

Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War by Mark Bowden

North of the DMZ: Essays on Daily Life in North Korea by Andrei Lankov

The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag by Chol-hwan Kang

Korea: A Walk Through the Land of Miracles by Simon Winchester and commented:

A little dated, but good.

Imperial Grunts: The American Military on the Ground by Robert D. Kaplan

The Caine Mutiny: A Novel by Herman Wouk

Billy Budd and Other Stories by Herman Melville

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein

The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman

Once An Eagle by Anton Myrer

Fields of Fire by James Webb

The General by C. S. Forester

This Kind of War by T.R. Fehrenbach

The Village by Bing West

Battle Leadership by Adolf Von Schell

The Soldier's Load and the Mobility of a Nation by S. L. A. Marshall

The Savage Wars Of Peace: Small Wars And The Rise Of American Power by Max Boot

Not a Good Day to Die: The Untold Story of Operation Anaconda by Sean Naylor

Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton by Martin van Creveld

Challenge of Command by Roger H. Nye

American Soldiers: Ground Combat in the World Wars, Korea, And Vietnam by Peter S. Kindsvatter

Company Commander: The Classic Infantry Memoir of World War II by Charles B. MacDonald

America's First Battles, 1776-1965 by Charles E. Heller

Band of Brothers : E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest by Stephen E. Ambrose

Patton: A Genius for War by Carlo D'este

If You Survive: From Normandy to the Battle of the Bulge to the End of World War II, One American Officer's Riveting True Story by George Wilson

We Were Soldiers Once...and Young: Ia Drang - the Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam by Harold G. Moore

For the Common Defense by Allan R. Millett

Face of Battle by John Keegan