Second Book; First Line

I don't ever do this . . . read two books at once, but I have been lately.

When I was younger it was anathema for me to have anything else on my mind, much less be reading another book, while in the midst of reading one. But lately, when I go to sleep, I put the smart phone away, no Twitter, no Facebooks, no Blogs, no Kindle,  . . . nope, nothing but a good old fashioned book.

Sure I still have the Kindle book I'm reading, I just don't read it before going to sleep. For sleeping I read a real, page turning book.

Right now I'm reading Hampton Sides' "On Desperate Ground," (see here) a non-fiction account of the Korean War and the Marines at the Chosin Reservoir. The Korean War is easily one of my favorite conflicts, and Hampton Sides, writer of Ghost Soldiers as well, is one of my favorite non-fiction authors.

The first line, which I read before hitting the rack the other night, was:

In the misting rain, they pressed against the metal skins of their boats and peeked over the gunwales for a glimpse of the shores they were about to attack. Some thirteen thousand men of the First Marine Division, the spearhead of the invasion, had clambered down from the ships on swinging nets of rope and then had crammed themselves into a motley flotilla of craft that now wallowed and bobbed in the channel. Several of the rusty old hulks, having been commandeered from Japanese trawlermen, smelled of sour urine and rotten fish heads. The Marines, many of them green from seasickness, saw the outlines of the charred foothills that rose above the port, and caught the scent of the brackish marshes and the slime of the mudflats. Corsairs, bent-winged like swallows, dove over the city, dropping thousand-pound bombs and sending five-inch rockets deep into hillside nests where the enemy was said to be dug in. Far out at sea, the naval guns rained fire upon the city, damaging tanks of butane that now flared and belched palls of smoke.

On this warm, humid morning of September 15, 1950, the Marines had arrived at their destination halfway around the world, to stun their foe and turn the war around: a surprise amphibious attack, on an immense scale, deep behind the battle lines. Only a few months before, these young men, fresh from their farms and hick towns, had piled into chartered trains and clattered across America to California. Then they climbed aboard transport ships, where many of them did their basic training, learning how to strip and rebuild M1 rifles, drilling on the crowded decks, practicing their marksmanship on floating targets towed from the fantails. They crossed the Pacific and stopped briefly in Japan, then heaved their way through a full-scale typhoon. They rounded the peninsula and moved in convoy up the west coast, through the silted waters of the Yellow Sea.

Sides, Hampton - On Desperate Ground

That's a great opening right there. Who couldn't want but to read on!

Down Time

So I have a bit of down time. Not a ton, but just a bit. What do I mean by that? I mean my classes are over and I have about a month before my next two or three classes begin. So, what am I doing with this little bit of extra time?

I’m reading.

Korean War EQ

One of my favorite eras and actions to read about is the Korean War. A colleague of mine brought up a book about a military company commander going against orders to make the ethical decision reminded me of a book I recently finished, On Desperate Ground by Hampton Sides. In the book Sides writes about two aviators Jesse Brown and Thomas Hudner. Hudner as I recall deliberately crashed landed his plane on the side of a snowy mountain despite orders not to in an effort to help his wingman Jesse Brown who had been shot down. He later received the Medal of Honor for his actions. Throughout a book that tells of many valiant efforts, that one stuck with me the most for Hudner's devotion to his buddy. Wondering if you've read On Desperate Ground. If not, you should.

I too had a boss who was a true salesman, and it wasn't until I read this article by Goleman several years ago that I realized how finely tuned his emotional intelligence was. I look through the characteristics that make up someone with a high degree of emotional intelligence and this boss has them all. It was a little like looking behind the curtain and finding out that Oz wasn't so great and powerful, but it did help me begin to develop my own emotional intelligence. 

I liked the passage in the article that discusses an executive with little empathy. Goleman states "to enhance emotional intelligence, organizations must refocus their training to include the limbic system," which is the part of the brain that focuses on emotions and memory. "That not only takes much more time than conventional training programs, it also requires an individualized approach." More time. More individual attention. Both of these would be tough to sell to any organization's leadership in an era where training budgets are so tight and will probably be cut as companies re-org after the COVID-19 losses. 

No Characters in Ripcord

I don't have time for bad books anymore. What am I? Almost 50? Close enough were I can say I am 50! Let's say 50. That's a good deal past half my expected expiration date. Who wants to spend the few remaining days I have reading bad books. 

Some bad books I have to read . . . for work? . . . for school (hopefully that's coming to an end soon) . . . for other myriad reasons. But if I read for fun . . . I don't want to waste my reading time on bad books. Ripcord, it's a good book about a battle, but it's a horrible story. 

What's that mean?