Customer Reviews

Army Officer's Guide: 47th Edition

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This book tells all the ins and outs of having a successful career in the Army. All the information you could ever want is in one place and at your fingertips. Every officer in the Army should have one despite rank or years of service. There is valuable information here for everyone. This book is especially valuable to OCS candidates, military school cadets, and ROTC cadets who want to start their career off right. You can't go wrong with this purchase.

The Army Officer's Guide from Stackpole Press has been "the book" for officers in the US Army for years. You would be hard pressed to find a serving officer who does not have a copy; probably the edition from the year in which he or she first entered active duty. But there is another use for this book, the current edition and all 46 predecessors. Authors, screen play writers, prop people, and production designers can find no better reference for information about military customs and courtesies, uniforms and insignia, military organizations and duties, or any of the other myriad details that lend realism to stories, novels, screen plays, or theater involving military characters or settings. Whether you order the current edition to support research on a contemporary story or haunt flea markets for a 1951 edition for a story set in the Korean War, this series is a gold mine of information for authors.

Criticizing this iconic manual of the Army world is risky business. It is one of the best available sources of info on the life of the Army officer at least insofar as it summarizes the mountain of regulations, field manuals, instructions and customs that can be a very bad surprise for the new officer. The addition of warrant officer materials has helped this old war horse. But, I am female, and to be blunt there ain't much in this book that speaks to female specific issues. Just try to find out how to hang your badges, buttons and insignia on female dress blues, although the book has a pretty good summary of the uni regs.

The book is very short on the subtle and difficult political problems faced by all soldiers, male and female, and how to manage a new generation of troops enlisted in a time when military service is not an everyday event. It speaks little to the issues related to deployments and missions that aren't what Little Georgie Patton ever imagined as duty.

Soldiers have families, but not spouses who are little women at home. Hell, a lot of them are women! And, in a society that waves the flag, few in our halls of power have ever donned the uniform. For all the patriotic rhetoric, officers need to work the miracle of the loaves and fishes [because they will work with ancient and frequently malfunctioning equipment, if it works at all, or for that matter exists], be international diplomats, legal experts, marriage counselors and financial advisors. That isn't as much a complaint about the job, as it is a "Guide" that doesn't address the challenges.

This book contains the ins and outs of the US Army and its branches, customs, and other information essential to being a successful Cadet and eventually a 2LT in the United States Army.

VERY GOOD BOOK NEEDED BY ALL OFFICERS AND CADETS LEARNING TO BE AN OFFICE