A Different Battle Cry for Marines: Hit the Books!

Summer is the time for reading lists.

The glossy magazines have them. The feature sections of the newspapers have them. Even Barbara Bush issued a pitch for summer reading.

Now there is an unlikely entry in the reading derby: Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Alfred M. Gray.

If Gray has his way, the modern Marine will be equally proficient with his M-16 and his library card. Gray issued an order that all Marines shall begin reading from an approved reading list.

Gray’s books mostly deal with fighting and great battles. “Catch-22” and “The Naked and the Dead” didn’t make Gray’s list, but “The Red Badge of Courage,” “War and Peace” and “All Quiet on the Western Front” did.

“Marines fight better when they fight smarter,” Gray said. He ordered all major bases, including Camp Pendleton, to ensure that noncommissioned officers read two books a year and officers four to six.

The list includes the classic works of military strategy (S.L.A. Marshall, Thucydides, Mao, Sun Tzu, Von Clausewitz) and military biography (Patton, MacArthur, Rommel).

Naturally, there is a local angle.

Victor Krulak’s memoir, “First to Fight,” is on the list. He’s a retired Marine lieutenant general who lives in Rancho Bernardo, spent a decade as an executive with the Copley Press and now writes occasional commentaries for the Tribune.

Gray also believes in learning from defeat. On the list for officers are Neil Sheehan’s book about Vietnam, “A Bright Shining Lie,” and a guerrilla perspective by North Vietnamese Gen. V. N. Giap, “How We Won the War.”

Bets, Bats and Hackers

Notes from me to you.

- There’s nothing to the rumor that the Del Mar Race Track observed a moment of silence on opening day for Pete Rose. I checked.

- The Padres’ batboys have new orders: Stand up straight during the National Anthem. A recent feature story showed two of them slouching during the pregame anthem.

Public reaction was swift and negative. The batboys’ boss was not happy.

- A UC San Diego engineering graduate named Josh Parker has started a computer software firm called Keyboard Comedy for hackers in need of merriment. Just pop in a disk.

Sample joke: “Dan Quayle always said he would have scored higher on the SATs if the guy in front of him had worked harder.”

Junking Legal Jargon

John Seitman, a San Diego lawyer, has discovered something.

The words hereinbefore, forthwith, adjudged, hereafter, aforementioned “and the ever-popular whereas” are not used much in common discourse. Only in the written expression of lawyers do such teeth-rattlers flourish.

As a member of the Board of Governors of the State Bar, Seitman decided that it is time for the legal profession to tame its tendency toward the arcane and archaic.

He prepared a three-page paper for the board. Included was an example of foliage that he says needs pruning.

“Tenant has not at any time heretofore made, done, committed, executed, permitted or suffered any act, deed, matter or thing whatsoever, whereby or wherewith, or by reason or means whereof, the said lands and premises hereby assigned or surrendered, or any part or parcel thereof are or is, or may, can or shall be in any wise impeached, charged, effected or incumbered.” Translation: The tenant has done nothing to get the landlord sued.

Meeting in Los Angeles, the bar board unanimously adopted a three-part motion (without a single whereas) urging all lawyers to use simple English, making sure all State Bar documents for the public use simple English and writing an “English can be fun” pamphlet for lawyers.

Now comes the hard part: persuading the state’s 117,000 lawyers to embrace clarity.

Seitman, 47, whose clients are banks and thrifts, has high hopes. Lawyers, he said, like to get results and are eager to cast off excess baggage.