By Col. William D. Bushnell, USMC (Ret)

From Vietnam leadership (military and civilian) to Civil War medicine to unheralded history throughout the Americas, there are plenty of stellar contemporary choices for your next military read.

You can order the books through the links in the titles below; MOAA is an Amazon Associate and earns money from qualifying purchases, with the revenue supporting The MOAA Foundation.

[MORE FROM MOAA: Military Professional Reading List]

McNamara at War: A New History

By Philip Taubman and William Taubman. W.W. Norton & Company, 2025. (Audio version available)

Robert McNamara (1916-2009) is best known as the secretary of Defense for presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, and for his staunch support for the Vietnam War. However, the Taubman brothers, both eminent historians, reveal much more about McNamara’s life before politics, in business, finance, and academia, as well as his inability to admit he was wrong about the war.

The result is an intriguing biography of a man who could have ended the Vietnam War.

Ghosts of Panama: A Strongman Out of Control, a Murdered Marine, and the Special Agents Caught in the Middle of an Invasion

By Mark Harmon and Leon Carroll Jr. Harper Select, 2024. (Audio version available)

This is the obscure story of Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) agents working in Panama in 1989 who are caught up in the U.S. invasion to oust Gen. Manual Noriega. NCIS agents worked with informants and spies to gather intelligence about Noriega’s drug trafficking, Cuban military personnel, and anti-American sentiment in Panama’s defense forces while trying to protect their own families and not get themselves killed.

Spies, crooks, gunfights, and White House decisions put these agents in harm’s way.

Admirals Under Fire: The U.S. Navy and the Vietnam War

By Edward J. Marolda. Texas Tech University Press, 2021. (No audio version)

As a former acting director of naval history and senior historian of the Navy, Marolda is well placed to tell the fascinating stories of five four-star admirals and the constant, conflicting challenges they faced with a “destabilized Navy,” Cold War pressures, a failed war strategy, and weak national leadership during the Vietnam War.

Adms. Harry D. Felt, Ulysses S. Grant Sharp, Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr., Thomas H. Moorer, and James L. Holloway III were combat-tested, competent leaders confronted with impossible tasks in an unpopular war. The author handles their stories with balance and honesty. Excellent political and military history.                       

American Civil Wars: A Continental History, 1850-1873

By Alan Taylor. W.W. Norton & Company, 2024. (Audio version available)

Two-time Pulitzer Prize winning historian Taylor presents the third book in his continental history of the U.S. Here he presents the period when Mexico, the U.S., and Canada all became nations. Threads include the slavery issue, the Civil War, the French invasion of Mexico, western expansion and conflict with native people, as well as Canada’s internal strife between English and French-speaking factions.

Taylor also describes the role of the transcontinental railroad, liberalism, political and corporate corruption, elections, and border disputes. Well supported with maps and photos, this is compelling history.

Gettysburg Surgeons: Facing a Common Enemy in the Civil War’s Deadliest Battle

By Barbara Franco. Stackpole Books, 2025. (No audio version)

It is hard to imagine the horrors of more than 25,000 wounded at Gettysburg in 1863, men maimed and suffering grave, painful wounds treated by both Reb and Yank surgeons in makeshift, unsanitary field hospitals in tents, barns, houses, and churches.

Franco, founding director of the Gettysburg Seminary Ridge Museum and Civil War scholar, tells of the medical personnel’s efforts, skills, and primitive procedure, highlighting Civil War medical shortcomings and incompetence in dealing with wounds and disease, as well as the courage of doctors, orderlies, and nurses working tirelessly to care for thousands of wounded soldiers.

Col. William D. Bushnell, USMC (Ret), is a regular contributor to MOAA.org and Military Officer magazine.