Marines are fighting boredom by the book

The weather is stifling, the landscape bleak. Four Marines are sitting in their Humvee doing what Marines often do: waiting.

From time immemorial, military service involves a lot of waiting: waiting for orders, waiting to get moving, waiting to get into position, waiting to return to base, waiting in line for chow and mail. In a war without a front, in a place where much of the landscape is moonlike and where two-thirds of the troops are here for their second tour, something is needed to break the tedium of working seven days a week, a minimum of 12 hours a day.

So what are Cpl. Arthur Taylor, 22, of rural Indiana; Cpl. Josh Reynolds, 20, of Bald Knob, Ark.; Lance Cpl. Andrew Yu, 19, of Orange County, Calif.; and Cpl. Michael Debolt, 21, of Grand Rapids, Mich., doing to pass time? Grousing? Talking of women? Speculating on matters of geopolitics? No, no and no.

They’re reading.

Stow your stereotypes. Marines are readers and never more so than when they are deployed on the front lines with time on their hands and not much else to take their minds off the heat, the danger and the stateside comforts they no longer enjoy.

Yes, back at camp there are DVDs, some Internet connection, recreation rooms with pool tables and pingpong, but reading offers a more introspective respite that more whiz-bang recreation cannot.

Reynolds is reading a biography of Nightstalker serial murderer Richard Ramirez. “A buddy gave it to me,” he explained. Taylor is reading about Jesse James, the man and the myth. Yu is reading a true-crime story. And Debolt is reading his Bible.

“You get away from home, and this stuff means a lot more to you,” he said. Truth be told, though, he alternates between the Bible and some escapist adventure fiction.

As the Marines from the Camp Pendleton-based 1st Marine Expeditionary Force assumed responsibility for much of the volatile Sunni Triangle region from the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, they brought their books. And if they didn’t bring enough, nearly every Marine camp in the far-flung Al Anbar Province has a library stocked with well-read paperbacks donated by well-wishers back home. (The military imposes no censorship on what the Marines can read so there’s everything at the base library from Henry Miller to the latest thrillers.)

Cpl. Jason King, 21, of St. Charles, Mo., has already finished a Dean Koontz, a Michael Crichton and a John Grisham. “It’s a way to pass time,” King said. “When I read a book I’m somewhere else, somewhere different.”

The fact that Marines stationed in Iraq are readers shouldn’t come as a big surprise.

This is the most educated group of Marines ever to serve; all but a tiny handful are high school graduates and many in the enlisted ranks have some college. Many are talking of college when their enlistments are up.

Since 1989, the commandant of the Marine Corps has issued an annual reading list, with certain books suggested for certain ranks. The list is surprisingly pointed, even political. For privates, the U.S. Constitution and Robert Heinlein’s “Starship Troopers” are among the suggested titles. For colonels, “The Peloponnesian War” by Thucydides; and for generals, “In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam,” by Robert McNamara.

An informal survey of Marines here shows the favorite genres to be military fiction (particularly W.E.B. Griffin, who has several titles on the commandant’s list), military history (if someone had the Stephen Ambrose concession, he could be rich) and adventure-fantasy-crime fiction. Self-help and financial investment books also have fans. Anthony Swofford’s heralded “Jarhead,” an ex-Marine’s story of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, has a following, even if its raunchy tone and up-yours attitude toward authority has kept it from the commandant’s list.

“He uses our language,” Cpl. Timothy Stevenson, 21, of San Antonio said about the book.

While military-themed books may be the norm, Cpl. Victoria McPhee, 23, of Culpepper, Va., breaks from that mold. She’s devouring Amy Tan’s “Joy Luck Club” and has several J.D. Robb romances beneath her bunk.

“I know they’re cheesy, but I love them,” said McPhee. “A lot of guys like the war books, but I away stay from that. I get enough of that when I’m on duty.”

Books are a way to find privacy where there is none. “Books help me to get away, help me to relax,” said Navy medic Marie Morris, 29, of Winamac, Ind., who likes English murder mysteries. “They help me to get to my own little place.”

Although it may sound like a Hollywood war-movie cliche, nearly every group of Marines seems to have at least one Marine reading the Bible. Impromptu discussions about religion are common.

Sgt. Jose Espinoza, 25, of Houston, has just finished Deuteronomy. He’s also reading Heinlein’s “Starship Troopers.”

“Moses has just died,” Espinoza said of his Bible reading. “God has promised his people the Promised Land but Moses won’t see it.”

That he is standing in the region where the biblical story unfolds has given his reading more significance, Espinoza said. If the younger troops are just learning the value of a book for the off-hours and downtime, more seasoned hands have long known the value of a paperback in the back pocket.

Master Sgt. Dan Hongell, 36, an 18-year-veteran from Boonesborough, Md., said he learned several deployments ago that reading can help cut through the boredom. He’s a Griffin fan who’s hip-deep in “Blood and Honor.”

“We’re Marines: We improvise, we adapt, we overcome,” he said. “And we read.”