Duty, Honor, Country & Life by William H. McRaven

DUTY, HONOR, COUNTRY & LIFE by William H. McRaven (Sea Stories, Make Your Bed, and others) takes its title in part from a speech by General MacArthur. In fact, this new book is filled with speeches that McRaven himself has delivered over the last decade or two. In that sense, it harkens to a more hopeful time and lives up to its subtitle: “A Tribute to the American Spirit.” Examples of the texts that appear include a National Football Foundation Speech (2016), a New York Historical Society speech (2023), and commencement speeches from MIT (2020), UT Southwestern Medical School (2015), and University of Texas at Austin (2014) to name just a few. McRaven had an amazing 37-year career as a Navy SEAL followed by time as the Chancellor of the University of Texas. A patriotic and thoughtful person, he prefaces each speech with a brief commentary and has also included several pieces of his own poetry, plus some from his grandmother. Readers will readily see the values, including family, which are so important to him and those he feels define the country (“liberty, equality, self-government, individualism, the rule of law, and religious freedom”). 

Like McRaven’s other writings, this is an inspirational text – in fact, I was at a local Barnes & Noble yesterday where a customer was requesting it. PBS NewsHour also filmed a recent interview:

If your spirits need a lift, look for DUTY, HONOR, COUNTRY & LIFE and other titles by McRaven.