Words for Warriors

by Ralph Puckett

Words for A Professional Soldier's Notebook is about leadership-leadership on the battlefield and in the garrison. Colonel Ralph Puckett, a Ranger legend, shares what he has learned in more than fifty-eight years of training, leading, teaching, and mentoring Warriors. This book addresses tactics, training, administration, special staff, public relations, self-development, and myriad other subjects that are the responsibilities of commanders. Much of this advice will be useful to business leaders as well. The essays within are not limited to Colonel Puckett's experience. They draw heavily upon the experiences of others to provide a broad discussion of practical courses of action for the many challenges that confront leaders. This invaluable resource presents ideas that will help commanders with many of the problems that are part of everyday military life. Words for Warriors helps fill the gap between what is taught in our service schools and lessons learned through experience.

Genres: Military Fiction

410 pages, Paperback

First published November 15, 2007

Reviews

[William · Rating 5 out of 5]

Uses a winning formula: great quotes, heroic biography, military history, sage advice, and personal stories. This is an outstanding book for warriors of all ranks and services to improve their performance and better serve their people. It follows a tradition of others (MG Aubrey Newman’s Follow Me series), too few in my opinion as these are so important for learning things otherwise never taught or spoken about. The author has explored a wide range of topics and given appropriate attribution to good ideas from others: that is what learning from others is all about.

Full disclosure. Colonel Puckett was my Regimental Tactical officer at USMA. I found him to be a very caring, humble and understanding leader, despite the relatively short time and cadet environment involved. Have learned a great deal more about him reading this book and the lead-in stories for his recent Medal of Honor award ceremony. He is a great soldier who serves as a wonderful example for warriors to emulate.

[Hofstetter Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a continuous story, but a collection of 84 short chapters, each with a clear message and descriptive explanation. The teachings contained are easily transferable to other armed forces and, with a little creativity, to a civilian environment.

As a class teacher in the infantry officer cadet school of the Swiss Armed Forces, I do assign individual chapters to the cadets as reading assignments, since they are still understandable even for foreigners with moderate English knowledge due to their brevity and clear language (my cadets are German, French and Italian native speakers).

As an inspiration in between I like to use it again and again to read one or two chapters. The ideal target group seems to me to be platoon leaders and company commanders, but even as a staff officer in a division HQ it can't hurt to be reminded occasionally of what is happening outside.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short chapters that are packed with excellent wisdom for Military leaders.