But their jobs create no wealth. Ayn Rand famously wrote about people who use their intelligence in one area of life, but compartmentalize it away from others. Have you read her open letter to Boris Spassky?

RichKinley wrote: "The military exists to defend this country, and I take issue with your statement that the military is not creative. From Sun Tzu to Douglas MacArthur, the best military leaders have demonstrated a wealth of creativity in the way they do their jobs."

We have the "creativity" discussion among Objectivists who are also computer programmers. It seems like creative work. Both Ayn Rand and Ludwig von Mises held special definitions for creativity as being essentially non-economic, but only motivated to please the creator. Economic value is secondary.

Cleverly destroying lives and property is not creation. It is destruction. War brings no new values into existence.

The Fountainhead.

Anthem.

Fiction: The Fountainhead. Non-fiction would be The Virtue of Selfishness or Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. The second one is pretty heady, but I really enjoyed it.

I have no idea who you are talking about. If my library had two books and one was _Atlas Shrugged_ then the other would be _The Fountainhead_... or maybe University Physics by Francis W. Sears or George Thomas's _Calculus_. I respect and honor the military. My degrees are in criminology. I am a technical writer currently assigned to the Texas Military Department. But that said, the military is completely derivative and reactive. If your library is down to two books, you need think a bit farther down the road. If one book is already a given, then the only other book that explains both calculus and physics is Newton's _Principia_. Allow me to suggest _Merchants Make History_ by Ernst Samhaber or _The Romance of Commerce_ by H. Gordon Selfridge. _Capitalism and Arithmetic_ by Frank J. Swetz is a commentary and translation of the Treviso Arithmetic of 1478. Again, just saying, if you are down to two books, you need to think about the most powerful ideas with the greatest creative potential. Honored and honorable as they are, the military is not creative.