In the first half of your paper, you should summarize the contents of the book in narrative form, using answers to the first four “W’s” as a guide to your writing. Do not cover each question individually; instead, be sure to write an integrated narrative, in which you blend together consideration of the first four “W’s” so that the reader perceives them all as constituting a smoothly related and well-written story. In other words, provide the historical context within which the campaign and battle occurred, the actions of the armies and their leaders during the campaign and battle, and the historical results of the campaign and battle. Your further objective here is to reassure the instructor that you read the entire book.
In the last half of your review and analysis, you should answer the fifth and most important “W,” why. Here are two parts to the task. First, you should choose one of the principal commanders on either side involved in the campaign and battle in question and compare his leadership and decision-making to the U.S. Army’s Leadership Performance Indicators enumerated in Appendix B of FM 22-100, Army Leadership. (See Appendix ? of this document and link to Appendix; include D4 PDF content in the IG) Choose three or four of the indicators and compare your leader’s performance to them. For example, did your leader “define intent” and “prepare clear, concise operation orders?” Did he “take charge when in charge?” Did he “keep subordinates informed” and “clearly articulate expectations?” Did he “encourage initiative” and “build on successes?” These are but a few of the many performance indicators you may use.
The second part of providing an answer to the “why?” question involves the relationship of the campaign or battle in question to the material covered in ELO A, Language of the Military Profession, and Student Handouts D 1-3. That ELO and those handouts consist of a summary of the three levels of military operations, the nine principles of war, and offensive, defensive, retrograde, logistics, force projection, and MOOTW operations. Again, choose three or four of these elements of the operational art and evaluate one side or the other in comparison to them. For example, did these armies or their leaders employ mass and maneuver? Was Clausewitz’s “friction,” that is, chance or uncertainty, in evidence in this historical event? Did logistical considerations constrain or promote the operations of one side or the other? As above, these are only a few of the many elements of the operational art you may use. A substantial portion of your grade for the book review and analysis will come from this overall “why?” part, so be careful to give it the appropriate amount of time and creative energy.
How well you handle English, meaning demonstrating proficiency in such areas as spelling, grammar, and punctuation, will also help shape your grade. Therefore, be sure that you write with care and attention to detail and that you proofread your paper thoroughly several times before turning it in.
You must write your review and analysis entirely in your own words. Copying portions—even small portions—of the book under review into your paper without attribution in the form of quotation marks and page references is called plagiarism. Likewise, copying portions—even small portions—of other sources on the subject under review without attribution is also called plagiarism. Be careful that you do not even inadvertently commit plagiarism.
What this all means.. Choose a book, preferably from one of the links below, but any military-themed book is fine except Art of War… The first half of the paper is your typical book review… tell me about the book, and what you learned from it. The second half of your paper will apply the themes from the book to anything you learned in ROTC. Apply the principles of war to tactics used in a battle; how does the SHARP/EO program apply to lessons learned from someone’s story etc… based on this prompt write a book review about Forging the Shield by
Donald A. Carter
