Download or read book Canadian Forces in Afghanistan 3 Book Bundle written by Bernd Horn and published by Dundurn. This book was released on 2016-02-27 with total page 850 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Canadian Forces, including Special Operations Forces, have played an outsize role in the conflict in Afghanistan, often under a cloak of secrecy. For the first time, Col. Bernd Horn reveals the stories of the troops and operations behind Canada’s pivotal involvement in the Afghanistan conflict. No Ordinary Men Peels back the cloak of secrecy and reveals four untold special operations that Joint Task Force 2, an elite counterterrorist unit, conducted in 2005–06 in which their courage, tenacity, and impressive capabilities meant the difference between life and death. No Lack of Courage The story of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s Operation Medusa, the largely Canadian action in Afghanistan from 1 to 17 September 2006, to dislodge a heavily entrenched Taliban force in the Pashmul district of Afghanistans Kandahar Province. No Easy Task Afghanistan has long been considered the graveyard of empires. Those who have ventured into Afghanistan with notions of controlling its people have soon discovered that fighting in that rugged, hostile land is no easy task. This collection of essays examines this legacy of conflict, particularly from a Canadian perspective.

Download or read book The Chosen Few written by Gregg Zoroya and published by Da Capo Press. This book was released on 2017-02-14 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The never-before-told story of one of the most decorated units in the war in Afghanistan and its fifteen-month ordeal that culminated in the 2008 Battle of Wanat, the war's deadliest A single company of US paratroopers--calling themselves the "Chosen Few"--arrived in eastern Afghanistan in late 2007 hoping to win the hearts and minds of the remote mountain people and extend the Afghan government's reach into this wilderness. Instead, they spent the next fifteen months in a desperate struggle, living under almost continuous attack, forced into a slow and grinding withdrawal, and always outnumbered by Taliban fighters descending on them from all sides. Month after month, rocket-propelled grenades, rockets, and machine-gun fire poured down on the isolated and exposed paratroopers as America's focus and military resources shifted to Iraq. Just weeks before the paratroopers were to go home, they faced their last--and toughest--fight. Near the village of Wanat in Nuristan province, an estimated three hundred enemy fighters surrounded about fifty of the Chosen Few and others defending a partially finished combat base. Nine died and more than two dozen were wounded that day in July 2008, making it arguably the bloodiest battle of the war in Afghanistan. The Chosen Few would return home tempered by war. Two among them would receive the Medal of Honor. All of them would be forever changed.

Download or read book Special Operations Forces in Afghanistan written by Leigh Neville and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2011-05-03 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Intelligence specialist Leigh Neville identifies, describes and illustrates the Special Operations Forces (SOF) of the British, American and other Coalition forces committed to the 'War on Terror' in Afghanistan since 2001, providing a fascinating insight into specific operations detailing weapons, equipment and experiences in combat. With a surprising amount of recently declassified material from government departments that are yet to be published in the mass media, this is a ground-breaking analysis of the largest mobilization of Special Forces in recent history. With extensive first-hand accounts providing an eyewitness perspective of the fighting on the ground and including information on the British SAS, the US Delta Force, Australian and Canadian special forces as well as MI6 and CIA operational units, this book provides a crucial study of their skills and successes amidst the Afghan mountains.

Download or read book James Bartleman s Seasons of Hope 3 Book Bundle written by James Bartleman and published by Dundurn. This book was released on 2016-04-30 with total page 596 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Novelist, diplomat, statesman, representative of both the First Nations and the Crown in Canada, James Bartleman always writes from his incredible personal experience. Presented here are three extraordinary books, each touching on a different aspect of his life, whether a candid tell-all about the halls of power, or his unique novels in which the names and details have been changed to protect the innocent. Guaranteed to captivate readers of all stripes. Includes: Seasons of Hope Traces James Bartleman's life from an impoverished Native childhood to being appointed ambassador for Canada and lieutenant governor for Ontario, and how as his career advanced, he mobilized public support for Native education. This story traces the whole amazing story. Exceptional Circumstances When Luc Cadotte, diplomat and spy, returns home from Latin America during the FLQ Crisis, he becomes entangled in political machinations and a story of espionage, betrayal, and love gone wrong. Facing an unprecedented wave of domestic terrorism, Cadotte must weigh his ethics against public safety, with lives on the line. The Redemption of Oscar Wolf A saga of mid-20th-century Native life in Canada and abroad, and a novel of resonating ideas and unforgettable characters, whose fascinating, anti-hero protagonist sets out on a quest for redemption after a terrible incident kills his grandfather and a young maid.

Download or read book The Afghanistan Papers written by Craig Whitlock and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-08-30 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Washington Post Best Book of 2021 ​The #1 New York Times bestselling investigative story of how three successive presidents and their military commanders deceived the public year after year about America’s longest war, foreshadowing the Taliban’s recapture of Afghanistan, by Washington Post reporter and three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Craig Whitlock. Unlike the wars in Vietnam and Iraq, the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 had near-unanimous public support. At first, the goals were straightforward and clear: defeat al-Qaeda and prevent a repeat of 9/11. Yet soon after the United States and its allies removed the Taliban from power, the mission veered off course and US officials lost sight of their original objectives. Distracted by the war in Iraq, the US military become mired in an unwinnable guerrilla conflict in a country it did not understand. But no president wanted to admit failure, especially in a war that began as a just cause. Instead, the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations sent more and more troops to Afghanistan and repeatedly said they were making progress, even though they knew there was no realistic prospect for an outright victory. Just as the Pentagon Papers changed the public’s understanding of Vietnam, The Afghanistan Papers contains “fast-paced and vivid” (The New York Times Book Review) revelation after revelation from people who played a direct role in the war from leaders in the White House and the Pentagon to soldiers and aid workers on the front lines. In unvarnished language, they admit that the US government’s strategies were a mess, that the nation-building project was a colossal failure, and that drugs and corruption gained a stranglehold over their allies in the Afghan government. All told, the account is based on interviews with more than 1,000 people who knew that the US government was presenting a distorted, and sometimes entirely fabricated, version of the facts on the ground. Documents unearthed by The Washington Post reveal that President Bush didn’t know the name of his Afghanistan war commander—and didn’t want to meet with him. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld admitted that he had “no visibility into who the bad guys are.” His successor, Robert Gates, said: “We didn’t know jack shit about al-Qaeda.” The Afghanistan Papers is a “searing indictment of the deceit, blunders, and hubris of senior military and civilian officials” (Tom Bowman, NRP Pentagon Correspondent) that will supercharge a long-overdue reckoning over what went wrong and forever change the way the conflict is remembered.

Download or read book Fly Like a Girl written by Mary Jennings Hegar and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-03-03 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Young Readers Edition of a compelling story of courage and triumph, this is the inspiring true story of Major Mary Jennings Hegar--a brave and determined woman who gave her all for her country, her sense of justice, and for women everywhere. On July 29, 2009, Air National Guard Major Mary Jennings Hegar was shot down while on a Medevac mission in Afghanistan. Despite being wounded, her courageous actions saved the lives of her crew and their patients, earning her the Purple Heart as well as the Distinguished Flying Cross with Valor Device. That day also marked the beginning of a new mission: convincing the U.S. Government to allow women to serve openly on the front line of battle for the first time in American history. With exclusive photographs throughout, Fly Like a Girl tells the inspiring true story of Mary Jennings Hegar--a brave and determined woman who gave her all for her country, her sense of justice, and for women everywhere. Includes exclusive photographs throughout, a discussion guide, and a Q&A with the author written specifically for teen readers. Praise for Fly Like a Girl: "An honest portrayal of one woman's battles in and out of combat zones."--Kirkus Reviews

Download or read book Outlaw Platoon written by Sean Parnell and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2012-02-28 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A riveting story of American fighting men, Outlaw Platoon is Lieutenant Sean Parnell’s stunning personal account of the legendary U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division’s heroic stand in the mountains of Afghanistan. Acclaimed for its vivid, poignant, and honest recreation of sixteen brutal months of nearly continuous battle in the deadly Hindu Kesh, Outlaw Platoon is a Band of Brothers or We Were Soldiers Once and Young for the early 21st century—an action-packed, highly emotional true story of enormous sacrifice and bravery. A magnificent account of heroes, renegades, infidels, and brothers, it stands with Sebastian Junger’s War as one of the most important books to yet emerge from the heat, smoke, and fire of America’s War in Afghanistan.

Download or read book 3 Para written by Patrick Bishop and published by HarperCollins UK. This book was released on 2008-12-04 with total page 51 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Afghanistan, Summer 2006. This is war. Afghanistan in the summer of 2006. In blazing heat in remote outposts the 3 Para battlegroup is pitted against a stubborn enemy who keep on coming. Until now, the full story of what happened there has not been told. This is it.

Download or read book Jenny Willson Mystery 3 Book Bundle written by Dave Butler and published by Dundurn. This book was released on 2019-10-11 with total page 1074 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To protect her park and the wildlife she loves, warden Jenny Willson isn’t above breaking a few rules ... or bones. Book #1 — Full Curl Poachers and bureaucrats: Park warden Jenny Willson considers them equally repulsive and worthy of the same fate. When she discovers animals disappearing from Canada’s mountain parks, Willson finds herself racing down a trail lined with deceit, distraction, and murder, and tempted to cross a line to a place she might not be able to come back from. Book #2 — No Place for Wolverines When Jenny Willson initiates a covert inquiry into a proposed ski hill in Yoho National Park, she must decide if she’s willing to risk her career — and perhaps her life and the lives of those close to her — to reveal what lurks in the darkness. Book #3 — In Rhino We Trust Willson joins an American colleague on a secondment to assist Namibian officers trying to stem the loss of elephants, rhinos and other iconic species from their country. Instead, she gets caught up in a conspiracy involving wildlife poachers.

Download or read book We Stand on Guard for Whom written by Engler and published by . This book was released on 2020-10 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We Stand on Guard for Whom? is the first book to present a history of the Canadian military from the perspective of its victims. In his eleventh book, Yves Engler, the prolific author and critic of Canadian politics, exposes the reality of Canadian wars, repression, and military culture despite the mythologies of Canada as an agent for international peacekeeping and humanitarianism. Originating as a British force that brutally dispossessed First Nations, the Canadian Forces regularly quelled labor unrest in the decades after Confederation. It would go on to participate in military occupations or invasions in Sudan, South Africa, Europe, Korea, Iraq, Serbia, Afghanistan, and Libya, as well as Canadian gunboat diplomacy and UN deployments that have ousted elected governments. As the federal government department with by far the greatest budget, staff, PR machine, and intelligence-gathering capacities, this book shows how the Canadian military is a key developer of military technology, including chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. It also has an immense ecological footprint and a toxic patriarchal, racist, and anti-democratic culture. However, as this book shows, Canadian militarism has always been contested, as early as opposition to conscription during World War I and as especially during peace activism against the US war in Indochina. More recently, city councils have declared themselves nuclear weapons free zones and prevented hosting of weapons bazaars and, in 2003, antiwar activists stopped Prime Minister Jean Chrétien from leading Canada into the US-led invasion of Iraq. This book reveals the hidden militarism in Canadian life and reminds us that the first step to contest it is to recognize its pervasiveness and power.

Download or read book Thunder Over Kandahar written by Sharon E. Mckay and published by Om Books International. This book was released on 2011 with total page 16 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “I wish with all my heart that you were in school. I love my country, Daughter, but here we have been robbed of our most precious gifts: thought and imagination. Only in an atmosphere of peace and security can artists, poets, and writers flourish. Without our artists and storytellers, we have no history, and without history our future is unmoored—we drift. It is art, never war, that carries culture forward.”

Download or read book Alan Bowker s Canadian Heritage 2 Book Bundle written by Alan Bowker and published by Dundurn. This book was released on 2015-12-07 with total page 604 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this two-book bundle, Alan Bowker sheds new light on two subjects with a surprising connection: the great Canadian writer Stephen Leacock and the rise of Canada on the world stage, which Leacock profiled with keen wit and observational skill. With Bowker as your guide, explore what it was really like to live through the great upheaval that pushed Canada to come into its own on the world stage. A Time Such as There Never Was Before Ottawa Book Award 2015 — Shortlisted The years after World War I were among the most tumultuous in Canadian history: a period of unremitting change, drama, and conflict. They were, in the words of Stephen Leacock, “a time such as there never was before.” The war had been a great crusade, and its end was supposed to bring a world made new. But the conflict had cost sixty thousand Canadian lives, with many more wounded, and had stirred up divisions in the young, diverse country. With Canada struggling to define itself, labour, farmers, business, the church, social reformers, and minorities all held extravagant hopes, irrational fears, and contradictory demands. Whose hopes would be realized, and whose dreams would end in disillusionment? Which changes would prove permanent and which would be transitory? A Time Such As There Never Was Before describes how this exciting period laid the foundation of the Canada we know today. On the Front Line of Life In the last decade of his life, Stephen Leacock turned to writing informal essays that blended humour with a conversational style and ripened wisdom to address issues he cared about most — education, literature, economics, Canada and its place in the world — and to confront the joys and sorrows of his own life. With an introduction that sets them in the context of his life, thoughts and times, these essays reveal a passionate, intelligent, personal Leacock, against a backdrop of Depression and war, finding hope and conveying the timeless message that only the human spirit can bring social justice, peace, and progress.

Download or read book Games without Rules written by Tamim Ansary and published by Public Affairs. This book was released on 2014-03-04 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the author of Destiny Disrupted: an enlightening, accessible history of modern Afghanistan from the Afghan point of view, showing how Great Power conflicts have interrupted its ongoing, internal struggle to take form as a nation

Download or read book A Different Kind of War written by Donald P. Wright and published by www.Militarybookshop.CompanyUK. This book was released on 2010-07 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on hundreds of oral interviews and unclassified documents, this study offers a comprehensive chronological narrative of the first four years of Operation Enduring Freedom.

Download or read book Weapon of Choice written by Charles H. Briscoe and published by www.Militarybookshop.CompanyUK. This book was released on 2010-01 with total page 438 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 2003, this is the first unclassified official history authored by the U.S. Army Special Operations Command relating to Operation Enduring Freedom. Contains extensive maps and illustrations. Previously difficult to obtain, this extensive study shows what Army Special Operations Forces (ARSOF) accomplished to drive the Taliban from power and to destroy al-Quaeda and Taliban strongholds as part of the global war on terrorism during Operation Enduring Freedom.

Download or read book Chaos in Kandahar written by Bernd Horn and published by Canadian Museum of Civilization/Musee Canadien Des Civilisations. This book was released on 2013 with total page 41 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Into the Fire written by Dakota Meyer and published by Random House. This book was released on 2012-09-25 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The story of what Dakota did . . . will be told for generations.”—President Barack Obama, from remarks given at Meyer’s Medal of Honor ceremony In the fall of 2009, Taliban insurgents ambushed a patrol of Afghan soldiers and Marine advisors in a mountain village called Ganjigal. Firing from entrenched positions, the enemy was positioned to wipe out one hundred men who were pinned down and were repeatedly refused artillery support. Ordered to remain behind with the vehicles, twenty-one year-old Marine corporal Dakota Meyer disobeyed orders and attacked to rescue his comrades. With a brave driver at the wheel, Meyer stood in the gun turret exposed to withering fire, rallying Afghan troops to follow. Over the course of the five hours, he charged into the valley time and again. Employing a variety of machine guns, rifles, grenade launchers, and even a rock, Meyer repeatedly repulsed enemy attackers, carried wounded Afghan soldiers to safety, and provided cover for dozens of others to escape—supreme acts of valor and determination. In the end, Meyer and four stalwart comrades—an Army captain, an Afghan sergeant major, and two Marines—cleared the battlefield and came to grips with a tragedy they knew could have been avoided. For his actions on that day, Meyer became the first living Marine in three decades to be awarded the Medal of Honor. Into the Fire tells the full story of the chaotic battle of Ganjigal for the first time, in a compelling, human way that reveals it as a microcosm of our recent wars. Meyer takes us from his upbringing on a farm in Kentucky, through his Marine and sniper training, onto the battlefield, and into the vexed aftermath of his harrowing exploits in a battle that has become the stuff of legend. Investigations ensued, even as he was pitched back into battle alongside U.S. Army soldiers who embraced him as a fellow grunt. When it was over, he returned to the States to confront living with the loss of his closest friends. This is a tale of American values and upbringing, of stunning heroism, and of adjusting to loss and to civilian life. We see it all through Meyer’s eyes, bullet by bullet, with raw honesty in telling of both the errors that resulted in tragedy and the resolve of American soldiers, U.S. Marines, and Afghan soldiers who’d been abandoned and faced certain death. Meticulously researched and thrillingly told, with nonstop pace and vivid detail, Into the Fire is the unvarnished story of a modern American hero. Praise for Into the Fire “A story of men at their best and at their worst . . . leaves you gaping in admiration at Medal of Honor winner Dakota Meyer’s courage.”—National Review “Meyer’s dazzling bravery wasn’t momentary or impulsive but deliberate and sustained.”—The Wall Street Journal “[A] cathartic, heartfelt account . . . Combat memoirs don’t get any more personal.”—Kirkus Reviews “A great contribution to the discussion of an agonizingly complex subject.”—The Virginian-Pilot “Black Hawk Down meets Lone Survivor.”—Library Journal