From the Best Defense mailbag: Barry's book on WW II battalion commanders

Today's
mailboat brings Battalion
Commanders at War: U.S. Army Tactical Leadership in the Mediterranean Theater,
1942-1943, by Steven Thomas Barry.

It
looks very interesting. I've long been struck by the apparent paradox that battalion
command is an important level of command -- the first level at which an officer
has a staff, perhaps the last at which he actually might close with the enemy,
as Barry puts it -- but there are so few good books about it.