OT - Book (Non Fiction) Review/Recommendations Thread

[Raellus]

Just finishing Company Commander (Charles Macdonald) based on a rec here. I give it 4 out of 5 stars.

Pros:

It really helps someone who hasn't been in the service (i.e. me) understand how a rifle company works.

Gripping descriptions of combat.

Cons:

No maps. It's really easy to get confused when reading the author's description of firefights. Even scratch pencil maps would have helped a lot.

Macdonald makes some questionable judgement calls. He seems to have no problem with his men shooting prisoners, even slightly wounded ones. A couple of times, his men tell him that escorted prisoners didn't make it to the rear ("he tried to escape, you know...") and once, it appears that he did nothing to stop the rape of a German civilian girl ("the noise of a few men from the squad 'forcefully propositioning' a German girl") by some of his men. Those two instances really bothered me.