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Im not sure what level youre at, but I assume undergrad (sorry if Im wrong!) There is actually a huge movement in history, it got started in the 80s and 90s, called the post-modern approach to history. I think A LOT of postmodernist historiography is bullshit, but they do have one or two good ideas. One thing they do do, which is useful, is they question what a source is, exactly? As Im sure youre aware, most "modernist" (or traditional) history is based off of primary sources, which are written documents usually found in archives. Postmodernists argue that those sources are no better than an oral source, a picture or painting, an artifact, etc.

What that means for you, is you could base your paper (research) off of Oral sources, if you so choose. Now, I dont know what kind of university the U of Ill. is, but some historians dont really accept this school of thought. Thus, Id strongly recommend you ask your professor before using non-traditional sources in a paper. But if they OK it, you could do oral interviews of your Moroccan classmate, her family, and other members of the local Moroccan community. Then, instead of writing the "Be-all-end-all Military history of the Spanish-Moroccan War", youd writing something like "The Moroccan War in the popular memory of Moroccan-American immigrants." or something like that. It changes the story, but if youre locked into that topic, itd be an excellent way to go. If you do decide to take the popular memory route, I would also recommend reading History Wars: The Enola Gay and Other Battles for the American Past. The book discusses popular memory in the context of World War Two, and the Atomic Bombings. It discusses the tension between historians, some of whom say the bombings were immoral or even criminal, and people who experienced the event (or were related to veterans, who experienced the event), whose popular memory is different. Its an interesting discussion, which at its heart discusses the conflict between what we, as historians, say, and what people remember about an event.

But regardless of what you do, GOOD LUCK! If you have any questions, reply to this comment, or PM me, and Ill help as I can.

OK- Here is the crash course for learning what SOG was, what they did, and how they did it, written by the few men who actually survived!

There is a FANTASTIC new book called wE few just came out and is fantastic. Manages to intertwine constant humor with suicidal missions. author is legit hilarious at the right times, and somber when things went wrong, 100% top recommend.

And you can never go wrong with Secret Commandos, and

Across the Fence

on the ground

SOG

The Dying Place

By Honor Bound: Two Navy SEALs, the Medal of Honor, and a Story of Extraordinary Courage The SEAL Tom Norris was a part of MacvSOG, and his feats are the most amazing from the entire war

whiskey tango foxtrot) RT Alabama had 12 men facing off against over 3000 NVA for an entire day

SOG Chronicles: Volume One

Stryker, Black, Plaster, and Norris have been active in telling the story of SOG for a few decades after it was all declassified in the 90's.

Team Yankee was a great novel written about ww3 from a squad-level perspective

http://www.amazon.com/Team-Yankee-Harold-Coyle/dp/0425110427/ref=cm_lmf_tit_2

As a a single volume, you might want to read Great Captains Unveiled [1]. There are also very short books about all of these comanders that you can find by just typing there name into amazon, these are often only 50-100 pages.

You can also just read wikipedia if you want even shorter versions.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Great-Captains-Unveiled-Liddell-Hart/dp/030680686X

I enjoyed the Paddy Griffith one. Very well analyzed.

Edit: Sorry, did not have time to look up the specifics before. Here's a link.

That helps. I think you're right, the photocopies make the pages look about the size of a cargo pocket. I hadn't noticed that before.

Maybe one of these books:

• Uniforms of the Elite Forces: Including the SAS and United States Special Forces http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0713712597/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
  
  
• Uniforms of the Soldiers of Fortune http://www.amazon.com/Uniforms-Soldiers-Fortune-Leroy-Thompson/dp/0713713283/ref=pd_sim_b_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=1DXN29WAPX5K76EYGD2M
  
  
• Military Uniforms of the World: Uniforms and Equipment Since World War II http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0517620030/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
  

Where have I written that a doctrine is a set in stone battle strategy? Please quote me.

> Most military historians will agree that the operational level did in fact not exist before the first world war because of the advent of industrialization

Citation needed. Gerhard P. Groß disagrees with you here. True is the term "Operation" as we know it today can only rudimentarily be found in the 19th century. Nevertheless certain theories still existed even when under different names as e.g. "Grand Tactic". The maneuvers of French Corps ruing the Napoleonic wars outside of battle are neither strategical nor tactical movements, they are in fact operational. The same can be said for the movement of armies in the German wars of Unification and even for the US civil war.

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> There is a plethora of research and sources that I can give you demonstrating that bewegungskrieg can be treated as a doctrine because a doctrine is a mentality, [...]

Congratulations, you just proved my point: "Can be treated as doctrine" pretty much means the Germans didn't treat it like that. Thus you just admit that it isn't the German way of thinking and thus it isn't the German idea of warfare and as a logical result can't be their mentality. You thus compare apples with oranges while painting the orange in the color of the apple.

Quite honestly get this book and maybe this book. You will pretty instantly see how former German officers, who studied history and wrote for the German military history institute (and get their work peer-reviewed there) treat the whole aspect differently due to being raised in a different military culture. Especially the book by Gross is at that point quite a critique for German operational ideas and Frieser shows that several things Glantz wrote in "When Titans Clashed" are a very one-sided picture by Glantz.

Nevertheless the point stands: If you want to compare different systems, don't try to force one system into the other and than complain that it doesn't fit.

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> From what I understand you treat doctrines as solutions to quite specific situations whereas the video is not treating them like that, [...]

Again, quote me, because I'm pretty sure I didn't (or at least didn't mean it that way and can have expressed myself so that I got misunderstood).

I read 'All The Shah's Men' by Stephen Kinzer back in university, and I thought it was pretty informative.

You can find it here: https://www.amazon.com/All-Shahs-Men-American-Middle/dp/047018549X

I think it was called 'The Trench', I have a book written by the director on the same premise after the show was aired in the early 2000s
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Trench-Richard-Van-Emden/dp/0593049756
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0313725/
I think this is the one :)

William Manchester's memoir Goodbye, Darkness

Not online unless it comes in ebook format, but this is exactly what you're looking for.

http://www.amazon.com/Soul-Sword-Illustrated-Weaponry-Prehistory/dp/0684844079

I had this recommended to me

http://www.amazon.com/Barbarossa-Russian-German-Conflict-Alan-Clark/dp/0688042686/ref=sr_1_15?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415030211&sr=1-15&keywords=Operation+Barbarossa

I highly recommend the book 'On Killing'
https://www.amazon.com/Killing-Psychological-Cost-Learning-Society/dp/0316040932

The reason for suggesting the author I did was that he has done a good job of demolishing many of the myths around Soviet performance that have cropped up as a result of post-war historians only having access to German sources (in particular interviews with surviving German generals) which usually painted the Soviets in a very negative light.

The Soviets were no slouches when it came to learning how to fight a war. There's a reason they defeated the Germans despite such a bad start, and it wasn't just spam and trucks.

What seems to be missing from the story here is the increasing soviet superiority in the operational sphere. They learned how to equip and organize their forces, how to prepare and properly support follow-on attacks in other sectors to keep the pressure up, and had a growing pool of experienced leaders. They were not the clumsy oaf usually offered up by stories of early-war incompetence. In fact possibly one of the best examples of a very well-planned and effective campaign in the war was from the Soviets: their campaign in Manchuria.

It is very difficult to get a good impression of the individual quality of a soldier of either army late in the war. The soviets had both highly effective and experienced units but others were conscripted from recently occupied countries. The Germans were in an even worse state, conscripting old men and little kids to try to fight off the Soviets. The only successful German actions in the last year that come to mind involve trying to establish corridors for surviving civilians or other troops to get out from behind the Soviet wall.

Small Wars, Faraway Places: Global Insurrection and the Making of the Modern World, 1945-1965

Not a memoir, but On Killing by Lt. Col. Grossman is a "landmark study of the techniques the military uses to overcome the powerful reluctance to kill, of how killing affects soldiers, and of the societal implications of escalating violence" and might be of use to you. It's more psychology than philosophy, but could still certainly lend itself nicely to a philosophy paper.

A Rifleman Went To War https://www.amazon.com/dp/B014SRU58C/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_nlsQDbW82ZW4R

Duffy's War: Fr. Francis Duffy, Wild Bill Donovan, and the Irish Fighting 69th in World War I https://www.amazon.com/dp/1574886517/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_ZpsQDbV05BFY2

Storm of Steel, New Translation in American-English https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074YTLTXN/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_ussQDbZ5AG4NA

Rock of the Marne: The American Soldiers Who Turned the Tide Against the Kaiser in World War I https://www.amazon.com/dp/0425275566/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_0ssQDb1M0RSXK

My WW1 library is rather American focused