Think of this as a confession.

Each year, when magazines like “Preaching” and “Christianity Today” come out with their books of the year–the ones their editors decide all successful and thoughtful ministers should be familiar with–invariably, I will have read only one or two of them. “That one looks interesting,” I will think. “I’ll have to get it.”

When friends like Don Davidson ask, “So, what are you reading at the moment,” I always feel that I’m not reading what a man in my position–veteran pastor, denominational servant, reasonably intelligent Christian–should be spending time on.

Sometimes it’s a novel on World War II, such as those by James R. Benn, James Dunning, or Philip Kerr. At times, it’s a biography, such as “A Rose for Mrs. Miniver” on Greer Garson or “Adlai Stevenson” by Porter McKeever (no relation). I’ll read a book on the making of “Casablanca,” and then hole up with any Lauran Paine western I can get my hands on. (He’s the author of what may be the best western of our generation, “Open Range.”)

My grandchildren look at the stack of books on the floor by the side of my bed and ask how I can read all of those at the same time. I feel I’m being a poor role model for these young readers who, thus far, know only to open a book and read it all the way through without laying it aside to begin one or two or ten more.

But this week, the book was “The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War,” by David Halberstam. Plowing through any kind of book on that war is not something I had planned. I was 10 years old when that “conflict” began, 13 when it ended, and vividly recall the frustration and depression with which Americans dealt with that event. For good reason, it has been called “the forgotten war,” although anyone who was in it will never forget it.

The book was published last year and contains nearly 700 pages. I bought it on-line for $8 plus shipping and handling, and read it in three days this week while dealing with a strained muscle in my lower back which kept me home much of the time.

What drew me to read the book, though, was a half-hour I spent in the waiting room at Ochsner’s Hospital recently. I had gone by to visit two friends who were dying of cancer–one has since gone to Heaven and I did her funeral–and afterwards, got a cup of coffee from the lobby cafe and settled down in a comfortable chair to relax. On the table to my left, the Smithsonian magazine, always one of our favorites, carried an excerpt from Halberstam’s book which dealt with General Matthew Ridgway. I read a few paragraphs and was hooked.

I didn’t swipe the magazine, although I thought seriously about it.

I don’t consider myself a great leader, but, as with most pastors, I’m fascinated by the subject. Our readers here know we’ve posted over fifty articles on this website dealing with the subject. That’s why the account of General Ridgway caught my attention: he was a leader of men of the first order.

Halberstam writes of Ridgway’s taking command of the United States’ Eighth Army in Korea after the death of General Walton Walker in an automobile accident in December, 1950. He writes, “(Ridgway) was fierce, purposeful, relentless–the perfect man to take command at a bad time in a bad place in a war that had suddenly gone from bad to worse, and to put back together an Army that was unraveling.”

“He did not varnish things for his supervisors; nor did he waste much energy being warm or chummy. Everything about his manner–to superiors, subordinates, and the men who fought under him–implied that they were employed in a serious, deadly business, and no time was ever to be wasted.”

“If ever an American officer was perfectly suited for a particular moment in American military history it was Matthew Bunker Ridgway when he was summoned to take over the shambles of a dysfunctional Eighth Army.”

The rest of the Smithsonian magazine article–and the two chapters of Halberstam’s book which served as its basis–recounted how Ridgway came in and fired lazy commanders who refused to confront the enemy (“He was not a man who went around threatening to relieve subordinates. He would simply relieve them.”), required that the units under him quit making plans for retreat but for attack, and began rebuilding the confidence of the fighting men in themselves, something they had lost after a string of defeats.

The general ordered his officers to get their soldiers off the roads, favorite targets for the Chinese Communist forces. “Nothing but your love of comfort binds you to the roads.” They were to scout ahead in all directions and to know where their enemy was. “Find the enemy and fix him in position. Find them! Fix them! Fight them! Finish them!”

Previous leadership had had little use for intelligence, that is, knowing where one’s enemy is, who he is, and how he operates. Ridgway changed all that. He knew that “the better your intelligence, the fewer of your own men’s lives you were likely to sacrifice.”

If the two chapters on Ridgway are about leadership, the rest of Halberstam’s book–indeed, the rest of the Korean War–is about anti-leadership. The story of the failures in that great conflict is an account of inflated egos, generals like Ned Almond and the great MacArthur himself who surrounded themselves with, you’ll pardon the expression, suck-ups, men who wanted no contrary opinions, who believed pre-eminently in themselves, and who squelched any contrary views. As I read through this massive book, I found myself writing in the margins again and again comments like “insane,” “madness,” “what’s wrong with these people,” and “why doesn’t Truman fire him?”

Tragically, this kind of non-leadership showed up in the Vietnam War and, doubtless, Desert Storm and then the present war in Iraq. One would think the stringent military advancement process would weed out the egomaniacs, the actors, and the manipulators.

Halberstam says a woman once approached Dwight Eisenhower to ask if he knew General MacArthur. He answered, “Yes, I knew him–I studied dramatics under him for five years in the Philippines and four in Washington.”

Pastors, I suppose, have a particular admiration for a leader who does what General Matthew Ridgway did–come into a discouraged, deflated situation and immediately size it up, then take charge and almost ruthlessly and single-handedly turn it into an purposeful, efficient fighting machine.

That’s one reason pastors tend to admire coaches like Joe Torre, Paul “Bear” Bryant, and Vince Lombardi. We’d like to do what they did with the team we’ve been given.

And once in a while, a pastor does exactly that–comes into a church where all hope is gone, leaders are unsure, and the congregation is in disarray, sees exactly what needs to be done and goes about doing it. Some members are run off, but the leadership holds firm and the pastor never looks back. A year later, two years, five years, that church is on the map as one of the great ones of our time.

Sure would be nice, we think.

I once picked up a western novel with the title, I think–it’s been 20 years now–of “Preacher With a Gun.” Some outlaw crossing the Rockies came upon the frozen body of a man whose papers indicated that he had been headed to a particular town where he was to become the new pastor. It seemed the ideal way for the outlaw to shed his past and hide from the law, so he assumed the identity of the preacher. Then–and this was the fun part–when certain hidebound, self-important big-shots in the congregation tried to block his plans and interfere with his leadership, he simply pulled out a pistol and encouraged them to rethink their positions.

Not that any pastor wants to do that. But the thought does occur to you once in a while.

Someone told me of a pastor in another part of Louisiana a few years back–if any reader knows the story, please refresh my memory–who had been a prizefighter in his earlier life. When a mean-spirited church member threatened him, the way some are wont to do a minister who tries to exert visionary leadership, this pastor took him outside and whailed the daylights out of him. (Is ‘whail’ a word?)

He quickly gained the respect of the community, so the story goes, and had a great ministry.

Sure would be nice, I suppose. Or not, depending on how you look at things.

No doubt someone reading this will decide that I or all pastors carry around loads of latent anger and that we are in need of serious therapy. My response is that, no, we’re normal; we just have our “Walter Mitty” moments from time to time like everyone else.

It turns out that General Ridgway wrote his own book on the Korean War some 15 years after it ended. I found that little volume on-line and bought it. It’s next on my book table.

The hardest thing I have to do is explain to my wife why her husband of 46 years, a preacher and a director of missions, has suddenly decided that reading up on the Korean War is so important that I’m spending good money to buy these old books. “Like you need more books,” she says, and she’s right.

I don’t have a good answer. I just say, “I’m sorry. It’s who I am, honey.”

I’ll bet Joe Torre, Bear Bryant, and Vince Lombardi never second-guessed themselves this way.