Writer’s Guide to the Military

For years, I have been doing research into military and military training programs, just to get ideas as I formulate my own military. I haven’t done any primary research--it’s all been secondary (see April 22's post to learn why ;-) ), and I have been quite disappointed. The encyclopedia, non-fiction library books, and kids informative books have all lacked the information for which I searched. The Internet was even worse. I just wanted to know what basic training is like, what recruits learn, basic command structure, etc. The best books I found were written for those young people considering joining the military, but even they were somewhat lacking.

Then I stumbled on this book: <em>A Civilian‘s Guide to the U.S. Military</em>. That sounded promising. Flipping through, I discovered pretty much everything I had wanted to know, including a day-by-day summary of boot camp for the US Army. The book had been written as the author had me in mind! Then I noticed the publisher and realized the author <em>did</em> have me in mind--the publisher is Writer’s Digest.

So if any of you are looking for secondary source information on the U.S. Military, I would recommend this book. I can’t vouch for the accuracy as I have never been in the military, but since I’m making up my own military, accuracy isn’t a big deal for me. :-)