Michael Bailey: As we continue to highlight examples of individuals and organizations who are putting pluralism into practice across the country, I’m thrilled to feature Michael Jerome Plunkett, Executive Director of the Literature of War Foundation, an author, and a Stand-To Veteran Leadership Program, Class of 2024 alum. Michael, thank you so much for joining us. I’d love just to start by having you tell us a little bit about the Literature of War Foundation and the work you do through this organization.
Michael Jerome Plunkett: Yeah. Michael, thank you very much for having me. Very happy to be here. The Literature of War Foundation’s sole aim is to put books into the hands of the troops.
We started about five years ago. Lieutenant Colonel Tom Schueman was an English professor at the United States Naval Academy. He was, in some ways, the last person you might expect to end up in the classroom. He was a combat veteran, infantry marine, but he found himself appointed to this role, and he rose to the occasion.
And at the end of his time teaching there, he looked around at all the students, the midshipmen that he had. And he was really impressed by how motivated they were, how intellectually curious they were. And the thing that he wanted to do was take that beyond the classroom. He wanted to find a way to get this outside of the four walls of the Naval Academy and bring it to the ranks outside of that academy.
So, he set out. He pulled me in. He said, “we’re going to figure out a way to do this. Let’s get books into the hands of the troops.” And we’ve been doing that for about five years now.
Michael Bailey: I love that. And I love, as you said, the mission you all have to get literature into the hands of our troops. And one thing that you came into the Veteran Leadership Program with, as your personal leadership project, was what you call the Platoon Book Club initiative.
And so, I’d love for you just to tell us a little bit about what that initiative looks like and then, as we think about pluralism here, how do you view this initiative as promoting pluralism and dialogue amongst our troops?
Michael Jerome Plunkett: Of course. Yeah. So, when we first set out, we started off on social media. We were just putting what we thought were relevant quotes out onto our Instagram page. We got a lot of attraction there, a lot of attention, and we decided “we got to take this to the next level.” So, the first thing we did was, we actually did book drives, just your standard book drives where we would collect books, people would donate books, we’d box ’em up, and we’d ship ’em out to units.
And what we found pretty quickly was that the issue was that people- once they got the books, we didn’t know really what happened to ’em. We didn’t know if they were reading them, and we didn’t know if they were sitting on a shelf somewhere stuck in a closet. So, what we began to do is figure out “well what’s the issue here? And how can we make this so that we know that people are not just reading, but having conversations, right?” That they’re discussing the literature. Something’s actually happening because, really, the value of a book comes in the communication with the person sitting to your left and to your right. Once you’re able to actually verbalize, or talk about, or even write about what you’ve read, you’re processing that information.
So, we came up with this idea called the Platoon Book Club Initiative when we had a couple of soldiers, sailors, marines reaching out saying “I don’t want a box of random books. I want a box about 20-25 of this specific title, because I want to discuss it with my fellow comrades.” And so, we said, “well there’s the issue. That is the key that we can kind of exploit here.”
So, we set out, we created a reading list of books that we thought were valuable, and we said, we’ll get you 25 copies. You tell us the book, or you can select one from this reading list, and we will send it to you free of charge, along with some support, discussion, questions, other resources. And what we saw was that we put that as like a call to action out and in about 72 hours we had over 70-ish units reaching out from all over the world. Some were stateside, some were deployed. So, obviously there was attraction there, there was people wanted it. What we had identified as something to go after was clearly resonating with people.
And the idea there is not just to put a book in somebody’s hand, but to get them to read it and then discuss it with the soldier, sailors, marines, what have you, around them.
Michael Bailey: Wonderful. If you could put a picture-perfect goal of what success looks like to you with this initiative, what would that look like for you?
Michael Jerome Plunkett: Great question. It would look like a book in every pair of hands in the armed forces. That’s what I would love to see.
I’ve been a big reader since I was a little kid, and it’s been something that I’ve used to educate myself as well as to connect with other human beings. There’s tons of research out there that people who read are more empathetic. They think more deeply. They consider things before they speak. These are the types of personalities.
And what we looked into when we started the Platoon Book Club Initiative, we wanted to see if there’s any sort of historical example of this. And we found one. It was called the Armed Service Editions that happened during World War II, where we actually put several, like 130 million paperback novels, into the hands of GIs who are heading overseas. I mean, literally, we’re talking millions of paperbacks, and not the kind of paperbacks you see today in the grocery store at the airport. These were very thin, with the idea that they could be easily transported in a ruck sack or in a cargo pocket. So, it’s been done before. We’ve seen this before and it is a possibility. So, that’s what success would look like to me.
Michael Bailey: And then when you think about the kind of just the community, that aspect that this initiative builds in these installations that you all are working with how do you think about this dialogue that everyone is having together as it relates to pluralism. What does that mean to you?
Michael Jerome Plunkett: Well, I think when you sit down to discuss a book with somebody, one of the great things about reading, and I would say particularly fiction. I’m a big fiction guy. I will always defend fiction and novels. They’re worth reading. They force you to slow down. We are living in a society that is compressed. Everything is shortening. Technology is making us go faster and faster and faster. Reading forces you to slow down and really consider things, explore human emotions, explore perspectives outside of your own.
So that’s the starting point there, and then when you move it into a wider conversation- so, before the Literature of War Foundation, I volunteered for an organization called Patrol Base Abbate, and I ran a book club for them. And it was mostly virtual meetings, but this was geared towards veterans as well as active duty. And we would do one book a month. You could show up on Zoom, just like a screen like this, and we just wanted to talk about books and we wanted to make it as easy to get into as possible.
Patrol Base Abbate is the most accepting veteran organization I’ve ever been a part of. If you’ve put your hand in the air, and you’ve served this country, you’re welcome to join. It does not depend on what branch you’re in, what time, period, combat, non-combat, whatever. You’re welcome to join Patrol Base Abbate. And when we had these meetings, I was shocked by how many people were so nervous to talk about their ideas around these books, because sometimes there’s gatekeepers.
Literature can have this idea that you need to have some letters at the end of your name. You need to be a degree holding person before you’re allowed to have opinions. And I don’t believe that. I believe that, just by reading it and talking about a book, you are expressing your thoughts, your feelings, your beliefs, and being in conversation with somebody else creates community.
That’s the community right there. It’s happening in real time when you’re doing that. You do not need to have some sort of intellectual dissertation thesis statement. Just talk about how the book made you feel. I think that it’s simple but powerful, and I think that is the real power of pluralism, specifically within book clubs.
Michael Bailey: Michael, this work is amazing. My last question for you is just, for those who might be listening to this interview and thinking, “wow, this is amazing. How could I take what you all are doing and maybe put this into practice in my own community?” What lessons learned would you share for folks who are thinking about creating similar book club type models in their homes and communities?
Michael Jerome Plunkett: Another great question. I would say making it uniform and simple. Those are the two principles I approached this with. Like I said, we started off just boxing up books and just sending them out wherever people were requesting them. And it was a lot of legwork, but it was worth it. We couldn’t see the effects of our efforts.
We didn’t know what happened to those books. So, coming up with a program where we weren’t trying to overthink it or anything. We said, “you tell us the book, and we’ll get it to you, and we’ll provide some tools and resources for you to conduct these discussions, and then we would love to hear how it went.”
That’s the whole program. We keep it simple so that people are able to approach it. We’re servicing active-duty military servicemen and women who have a million and one things to do on their day job before they even get to their free time. And this is like a supplemental program, so we need to make it as easily accessible as possible, so they don’t have to overthink it. They don’t have to move mountains in order to get the books into the hands of the men and women around them.
So, keep it simple, keep it uniform. Keeping it uniform keeps people feeling like they can trust the program. They understand what it is. There’s an immediate sense of trust and confidence in what they’re doing. They know that they’re going to be supported. And then, you take it from there. We provide you the resources and you have the conversation. You let us know how it goes. It’s as simple as that.
Michael Bailey: Michael, thank you again for joining us and sharing your expertise with those listening. I just want to thank you for all that you do to strengthen our democracy. And thank you for sharing a little bit of that with us today.
Michael Jerome Plunkett: Thank you for having me.
