"Alright! Listen up, you goldbricks! I've now got a must-read book club! Oprah's got a book club! Even Dennis Miller's got a book club he calls 'Dennis Miller's, Oprah Book Club'. I sure as Hell ain't gonna' call mine the Hock's, Oprah Tea Party Book Party. It's Hock's Howling Commando Book Club. Hock's Book Club. This here club is dedicated to the inner Howling Commando in all of us who wants to read non-fiction (and maybe some good fiction) military, history, action, adventure, and you just might learn you somethin' along the way. Ain't that right Dum-Dum Dugan? WAKE UP over there, you stump brain!

DISSSS-MISSED!"

(But seriously? We have always nicknamed our crazy little insider group of martial practitioners as the Howling Commandos and we have always swapped books and movie reviews, so this was a natural extension of all that.)

For a period of years Karuse Publications - a house responsiible for many gun magazines - printed somewhat annual, book editions of this title, Combat Handgunnery and for this particular book in 2002, they asked Massod Ayoob to write. Once on a lengthy trip I had the time to really dissect this book and found it chock full of photos and interesting information. It became one of my favorite handgun and tactics books. It is probably cobbled together from his numerous articles, but that makes each section more refined and concise. Massod is a true American pioneer and data base of gun fighting, gun ciolence and tactics. This 255 page book is a keeper and a re-reader. (Amazon may have this)

Congo Mercenary by Mike Hoare

I thoroughly enjoyed this first person narrative of the famous and infamous Mike Hoare as he lead a "paid Army" through several Congo Wars in the 1960s. The 318 page book is a great and ugly insider look at recruitment, logistics, politics, torture, violence, murder and combat versus the Simbas. The book captures the period and the place with excellent flavor. The book is available through many houses, but USA's Paladin Press, by use of the "no one seems to own it anymore" clause has re-published it.

The Last 100 Yards: The NCOs Contribution to Warfare

Veteran H. J. Poole epitimizes the voice of the veteran NCO. A voice the military often fails to hear. He has authored a series of these style books, published through Posterity Press (but - warning - there are several Posterity Presses). He collects intelligence on how the enemy lives, thinks and operates.

I have enjoyed each book. This one is the first. Poole presents the information in what some have complained as a "slightly guerilla and shotgun style" but the information is just what the troop (and the Pentagon) needs. I found this oversized, 399-page book in a bookstore in Camp Pendleton when on a training session teaching there in 2001. I rarely see this anywhere and have had a real, hard time finding his other books. They all are keepers. I did find this page with some listed for sale. Click here for Poole

Blood and Thunder - Heavily researched, non-fiction epic of how the west was really won and manifest destiny. It also does much to destroy the modern, "hippy-myth" of the nature-loving, "green," peaceful American Indian, and reveals how many tribes murder, torture and slave-take, amongst themselves AND the new settlers and explorers. This give-and-take escalates into the Army vs. Indians wars, where brutal debauchery and slaughter existed on both sides and EQUAL levels.- Hock

Snake Oil Science

At first I thought this book was just about alternative medicines with a little support psychology. But it is way more. The reasons that medical testing can go horribly awry, the reasons that people believe that wishbones, copper bracelets, bark from a chinese tree, even, oh yes...things like prayer and acupuncture, have crimped or cured their ailments, are a varied lot. Unpredictable. Once you grasp this research, you learn that the same selection and evaluation processes are used by mankind to select religions, politics, mates, governments, socks and party hats. This book, by skeptic and Dr. Barker Bausellis, a biostatistician with the University of Maryland, is one of the most important books I have ever read.

The Afghan Campaign

From the author of Gates of Fire and the Virtues of War. This is an historical novel, but you can believe every pebble overturned in the tale is based on research and truth ala Professor Pressfield. It is a first-person narrative, page-turner about Alexander the Great's invasion into Afghanistan, as told from a soldier's eyes. Epic! Epric. Epic. - Hock

The River War by Winston Churchill

Is there anybody better than ol' Churchill? This is an account of Churchill's combat experiences as a young Lancer in the desert war of the Sudan. Remember his speeches? He is among the greatest of writers with a piercing eye and a rapier tongue and this book of his escapades, those he did, those he witnessed, are written like the master wordsmith that he was. I hung on every exotic word. This book can now be downloaded off the internet for free.