Once an Eagle

Anton Myrer's 1968 war novel follows Sam Damon from his enlistment as a private into an army career that begins in the First World War. Damon puts duty, honor and his men above his own interests and rises through success in field command. His lifelong rival, the officer Courtney Massengale, climbs instead through staff posts, political connections and cunning, and the two clash repeatedly as they rise together. Popular in the U.S. military, the novel is on the Marine Corps Commandant's required reading list for staff sergeants and gunnery sergeants, and NBC adapted it as a 1976 miniseries starring Sam Elliott.

James Mattis included it on the list of favorite books in an appendix to Call Sign Chaos.