Get a Spine! New Navy Reading Program Encourages Sailors to Read

In celebration of the Navy’s 237th birthday, directors of the Navy staff have released a new program to encourage reading amongst Navy cadets, featuring "Execute Against Japan: The US Decision to Conduct Unrestricted Submarine Warfare by Joel Ira Holwitt(TAMU Press, 2009) and many other books. They have launched a professional reading platform that will not only encourage reading but make books more accessible to sailors while at sea.

The program’s specific changes include: “a movement away from rank-based recommendation to a simplified division of books into two main categories. Eighteen books, categorized as ‘essential reading,’ will be distributed during the last quarter of the calendar year 2012 in hard-copy format to commands throughout the navy.”

In addition to these “essential reading” books, the Navy has provided a list of 24 books entitled “recommended reading” that will be available online and downloadable at no cost to the sailors. All of these books selected have relevance to the Navy, war fighting, and being at sea.

The program promotes further initiative when it states that, “Reading, discussing, and understanding the ideas found…will not only improve our critical thinking skills, but will also help us become better sailors, citizens, and most importantly, leaders. This list is not intended to limit professional reading in any way, but merely to provide easy access to a few of the many titles that will benefit our service.”

You can learn more about naval military history, Pearl Harbor, and World War II in "Execute against Japan."

If you would like to check out the entire list of Navy books, check out their website: www.navyreading.navy.mil.

--Madeline Loving