Marines Are Urged to Go by the Book

CAMP PENDLETON —  When the commandant of the Marine Corps went to the Adriatic Sea to meet Marines who are ready, if ordered, to make an amphibious assault on war-scarred Bosnia, he brought them a secret weapon.

A new rifle to replace the M-16? A CIA-obtained set of the factions’ tactical plans in the bitter, but, at the moment, quiescent conflict?

Nope.

What Gen. Charles C. Krulak brought to the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit were copies of an obscure and decades-old but riveting novel about a 19th-century European war that most Americans know nothing about: “Rifleman Dodd” by C. S. Forester.

Krulak, an ebullient San Diego native whose tenure has been marked by innovative attempts to understand the lot of the enlisted ranks, wants all 174,722 men and women of the Marine Corps to read “Rifleman Dodd.”

Read “Rifleman Dodd,” Krulak said, and you’ll see the kind of grit, resourcefulness and unboastful courage that he expects from his Marines and also the kind of confusing, “low-intensity” conflicts into which they could be thrust.

The slim novel is Forester’s unromantic account of the Peninsular War (1809-1814) in which Napoleon’s French troops invaded Spain and Portugal and were defeated by local guerrillas and a small force from the British Army in a bloody and protracted campaign over mountainous terrain.

Forester, better known for his seafaring Horatio Hornblower novels, chose as his protagonist Matthew Dodd, a rifleman in an English foot brigade, an unremarkable chap who does remarkable things.

So enthusiastic is Krulak about “Rifleman Dodd” that he has issued an ALMAR (Attention All Marines) recommending the book to everyone wearing the eagle, globe and anchor and asking them to talk about it among themselves.

“Some few who profess to be Marines fail to evidence in their deeds a dedication [to the Corps] . . . ,” Krulak wrote. “Such individuals appear not to have the unyielding commitment needed to press on when the going gets tough. . . . Use ‘Rifleman Dodd’ to help you portray this theme.”

Cut off from his unit after a firefight with French dragoons, Dodd joins up with the guerrillas, quietly takes charge, lives off the chilly and barren terrain, harasses the French forces for weeks, and finally fights his way back to his unit.

Dodd does not think he has done anything unusual or heroic, and neither does Forester, who notes that in the British Army of Gen. Wellington, enlisted men were not eligible for medals.

“The only reward for the doing of his duty would be the knowledge that his duty was being done,” Forester wrote.

Krulak often hands out copies of “Rifleman Dodd” when he makes his frequent morale-boosting forays to mingle among the troops, like he did last week to Pendleton and Miramar Naval Air Station. The 1942 novel had long been out of print but the Corps prevailed on a Baltimore publishing house for a special hardback printing.

Since 1989, the Corps has issued an official reading list, with different books keyed to different ranks. For 1996, “Rifleman Dodd” is listed as the “commandant’s choice.”

Having a novel as the commandant’s choice is a break from tradition. Usually that exalted spot is given books about tactics or military philosophy.

The current list of 191 books, developed by Lt. Gen. Paul K. Van Riper and approved by the commandant, includes books on Patton, Eisenhower, Rommel, Marine battles of World War II, the Soviet Union’s Marshal Georgi Zhukov, Vietnam (including the memoirs of North Vietnamese Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap), the Civil War and novels such as “Once An Eagle” and “The Red Badge of Courage.”

There’s nothing that forces a Marine to put down a potboiler and pick up “Mao Tse-Tung on Guerrilla Warfare” or “With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa.”

But Van Riper, in charge of combat development, says that taking the list seriously can bode well when it comes time for promotion and reenlistment decisions, a not insignificant matter as the Corps downsizes.

One reason Van Riper and Krulak are high on “Rifleman Dodd” is that they find a similarity between the Peninsular War and the kind of wars that Marines may soon be asked to fight: guerrilla wars, counterinsurgency wars, so-called “low-intensity” wars.

The current reading list was devised before President Clinton committed American troops to Bosnia and before three ships carrying 2,000 Marines steamed into the Adriatic to be ready.

Still, an expert on the Peninsular War finds striking similarities with the Bosnian struggle. Among them, says Georgia Tech history professor John Tone, are the ferocity of all combatants, reports of atrocities (including rape and torture) on all sides, and a rugged terrain dotted with small villages and beset by harsh winters. Also, the people have a “culture of resistance” of violence and ingrained hatred.

“It’s encouraging to me that the Marine Corps is interested in the history of guerrilla warfare,” said Tone, who has written a book on the Peninsular War, “The Fatal Knot,” and has read “Rifleman Dodd.” “It’s not just the past, it’s also the future.”

Forester describes Dodd’s determination matter-of-factly. He is resourceful but not infallible. He gives no thought to politics or grand strategies. He kills but takes no pleasure in it.

“Dodd was not exasperated or cast down at the new development,” Forester wrote. “The soldier with years of campaigning behind him has, perforce, acquired a philosophic outlook towards turns of fortune. If one plan goes wrong there is need to make another, that is all.”

To read “Rifleman Dodd” is to feel wet, cold, hungry and sometimes confused about who is winning what, not altogether unlike reading coverage of Bosnia in recent years.

In the introduction to the original edition, critic Carl Van Doren wrote that Forester “reports the incidents of the war but without romantic excuses or cruel satisfaction. . . . The actions are more important than the characters, the characters more important than the author.”’

‘Rifleman Dodd” has never been made into a movie but its companion novel, “The Gun,” was gussied up by Hollywood. Renamed “The Pride and the Passion,” it was a star vehicle for Sophia Loren and Frank Sinatra, complete with sex and military glory not found in the novel.

Forester (1899-1966) gives few details of Dodd’s background except that he was the son of an impoverished farmer.

Instead, he concentrates on how Dodd, although hungry and unsure of his location, surmounts his problems: “In the wet morning the usual three military problems of offence and defence and supply presented themselves.”

When Dodd finally makes his way back to his unit, Forester says that his uniform is shabby but his rifle “looked well cared for.”

There’s even a lesson in “Rifleman Dodd” for Marines tempted to grouse about their chow. After all his exploits, Dodd is satisfied merely to get a full ration of bread and an extra lot of salt.

“He dipped his bread in it luxuriously,” the book concludes, “and munched and munched and munched.”