Molon Labe

Everyone who posted recommendations for books thanks very much for that.

As for business models, the Brit agency I'm interning with is the first place I'd ever heard the term. It took a guy with more degrees in economics then I can count to explain it to me, and this is basically what I got out of it: its a look at how a unit (civilian or otherwise) is running and then determines how/if it can be run better.

With that as my guideline, they're having me research and write what will hopefully become a not-too-mediocre article which won't matter and no one will read. But the research and learning process alone is, for me anyway, priceless. Reading about the British in the Boer War, TE Lawrence in Arabia, the French in Indochina and Algiers, the USSR in Afghanistan and our exploits in Korea and Vietnam have all been eye opening and worth every minute of research. There are some scary repeats of history out there and some of them are repeating themselves right now.....

As far as Airbornelaywer's comment about false dichotomies and conventional vs unconventional approaches......while a lot of his post included big words that I don't want to look up, he simply restated the point I am making. I wan to show how unconventional methods used by SOF units, irregular forces, etc can be adopted by conventional forces to make them more effective. Thus the whole business model thing which will make our Brit friends happy.

Again, thank you for the recommendations on books to read. While my days of "pinging" and reciting "the corps" are well behind me, my first act as 1SG this semester will be to have all the plebes recite it in honor of you all....followed by push-ups.

RLTW
Molon Labe