Download or read book Hue 1968 written by Mark Bowden and published by Atlantic Monthly Press. This book was released on 2017-06-06 with total page 676 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of Black Hawk Down vividly recounts a pivotal Vietnam War battle in this New York Times bestseller: “An extraordinary feat of journalism”. —Karl Marlantes, Wall Street Journal In Hue 1968, Mark Bowden presents a detailed, day-by-day reconstruction of the most critical battle of the Tet Offensive. In the early hours of January 31, 1968, the North Vietnamese launched attacks across South Vietnam. The lynchpin of this campaign was the capture of Hue, Vietnam’s intellectual and cultural capital. 10,000 troops descended from hidden camps and surged across the city, taking everything but two small military outposts. American commanders refused to believe the size and scope of the siege, ordering small companies of marines against thousands of entrenched enemy troops. After several futile and deadly days, Lieutenant Colonel Ernie Cheatham would finally come up with a strategy to retake the city block by block, in some of the most intense urban combat since World War II. With unprecedented access to war archives in the United States and Vietnam and interviews with participants from both sides, Bowden narrates each stage of this crucial battle through multiple viewpoints. Played out over 24 days and ultimately costing 10,000 lives, the Battle of Hue was by far the bloodiest of the entire war. When it ended, the American debate was never again about winning, only about how to leave. A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist in History Winner of the 2018 Marine Corps Heritage Foundation Greene Award for a distinguished work of nonfiction

Download or read book Road Work written by Mark Bowden and published by Grove/Atlantic, Inc.. This book was released on 2007-12-01 with total page 644 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Painstakingly reported stories about losers, oddballs and con men” from the #1 New York Times–bestselling journalist and author of Black Hawk Down (The New York Times Book Review). This riveting anthology collects the most diverse and far-reaching of Mark Bowden’s award-winning nonfiction—“with fascinating features on Norman Mailer, the war against terror, and even a Philadelphia Zoo gorilla, Bowden’s range is broad” (Entertainment Weekly). Whether traveling to Rhode Island where one of the largest cocaine rings in history is uncovered, or to the Luangwa Valley in Zambia where anti-poachers fight to save the black rhino, Bowden takes us down rough roads previously off-limits: the top-secret world of Guantanamo Bay; Saddam Hussein’s post 9/11 days on the run; a pimp’s inside track on police corruption in Philadelphia; and Al Sharpton’s campaign trail. Bowden also invites readers along to meet a small-town high school football team, farmers who make bras for cows, the Rocky Balboa statue in Philadelphia, and to see Disney World with a wide-eyed group of terminally ill children. In Road Work, Mark Bowden “fashion[s] prose that reads like good fiction, with the bonus that his stories are true” (The New York Times Book Review). “Astute character reading and solid research combine with ingenious and stylish prose: a superior portfolio from a journalist who stays at the top of his game.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review “Bowden is unlike any other journalist . . . Superb reporting, a fine mind conceiving the story line, and a compelling writing style lead to something approaching immortality.” —St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Download or read book The Finish written by Mark Bowden and published by Atlantic Monthly Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Mark Bowden, the preeminent chronicler of our military and special forces, comesThe Finish, a gripping account of the hunt for Osama bin Laden. With access to key sources, Bowden takes us inside the rooms where decisions were made and on the ground where the action unfolded. After masterminding the attacks of September 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden managed to vanish. Over the next ten years, as Bowden shows, America found that its war with al Qaeda--a scattered group of individuals who were almost impossible to track--demanded an innovative approach. Step by step, Bowden describes the development of a new tactical strategy to fight this war--the fusion of intel from various agencies and on-the-ground special ops. After thousands of special forces missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, the right weapon to go after bin Laden had finally evolved. By Spring 2011, intelligence pointed to a compound in Abbottabad; it was estimated that there was a 50/50 chance that Osama was there. Bowden shows how three strategies were mooted: a drone strike, a precision bombing, or an assault by Navy SEALs. In the end, the President had to make the final decision. It was time for the finish.

Download or read book The Last Stone written by Mark Bowden and published by Open Road + Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 2019-04-02 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The true story of a cold case, a compulsive liar, and five determined detectives, from the #1 New York Times–bestselling author and “master journalist” (The Wall Street Journal). On March 29, 1975, sisters Katherine and Sheila Lyons, ages ten and twelve, vanished from a shopping mall in suburban Washington, DC As shock spread, then grief, a massive police effort found nothing. The investigation was shelved, and the mystery endured. Then, in 2013, a cold case squad detective found something he and a generation of detectives had missed. It pointed them toward a man named Lloyd Welch, then serving time for child molestation in Delaware. The acclaimed author of Black Hawk Down and Hue 1968 had been a cub reporter for a Baltimore newspaper at the time of the original disappearance, and covered the frantic first weeks of the story. In The Last Stone, he returns to write its ending. Over months of intense questioning and extensive investigation of Welch’s sprawling, sinister Appalachian clan, five skilled detectives learned to sift truth from determined lies. How do you get a compulsive liar with every reason in the world to lie to tell the truth? The Last Stone recounts a masterpiece of criminal interrogation, and delivers a chilling and unprecedented look inside a disturbing criminal mind. “One of our best writers of muscular nonfiction.” —The Denver Post “Deeply unsettling . . . Bowden displays his tenacity as a reporter in his meticulous documentation of the case. But in the story of an unimaginably horrific crime, it’s the detectives’ unwavering determination to bring Welch to justice that offers a glimmer of hope on a long, dark journey.” —Time

Download or read book Bringing the Heat written by Mark Bowden and published by Grove/Atlantic, Inc.. This book was released on 2007-12-01 with total page 532 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An ambitious, remarkably frank” chronicle of the Philadelphia Eagles’ bid for the NFL championship by the #1 New York Times–bestselling author (Kirkus Reviews). In 1992, the Philadelphia Eagles—a team assembled in the image of their iconoclastic, controversial former head coach, Buddy Ryan—were known for their ferocious defense led by Reggie White, Seth Joyner, and Andre Waters, and for the otherworldly talents of quarterback Randall Cunningham. Now was the time for the Eagles’ campaign for the championship. But as the season progressed, it disintegrated into an ugly flurry of greed, racism, violence, personal and professional feuds, one tragic death, and a very wild face-off in the stands between a player’s wife and mistress. By midseason, the sentiment of both fans and press was the same: “shut up and play.” Told through the personal stories of the teammates themselves, as well as the coaches, managers and owner, Bringing the Heat spares nothing—and no one—in “a phenomenal feat of reportage, perfect for football fans coast to coast” (H. G. Bissinger, author of Friday Night Lights). “Overflows with stories of pro football dreams, of bravery in the face of injury. Yet it also unflinchingly tells of the darker side of life in the NFL: uncontrollable egos, ruined families, marital infidelity.” —The New York Times Book Review “There are now four mandatory books on football: Dan Jenkins’s Semi-Tough; George Plimpton’s Paper Lion; H. G. Bissinger’s Friday Night Lights, and the hilarious, incorrigible son of them all, Mark Bowden’s Bringing the Heat.” —Michael Bamberger, Sports Illustrated

Download or read book The Battle of Mogadishu written by Matt Eversmann and published by Presidio Press. This book was released on 2005-07-26 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “No matter how skilled the writer of nonfiction, you are always getting the story secondhand. Here’s a chance to go right to the source. . . . These men were there.” –MARK BOWDEN (from the Foreword) It started as a mission to capture a Somali warlord. It turned into a disastrous urban firefight and death-defying rescue operation that shocked the world and rattled a great nation. Now the 1993 battle for Mogadishu, Somalia–the incident that was the basis of the book and film Black Hawk Down–is remembered by the men who fought and survived it. Six of the best in our military recall their brutal experiences and brave contributions in these never-before-published, firstperson accounts. “Operation Gothic Serpent,” by Matt Eversmann: As a “chalk” leader, Eversmann was part of the first group of Rangers to “fast rope” from the Black Hawk helicopters. It was his chalk that suffered the first casualty of the battle. “Sua Sponte: Of Their Own Accord,” by Raleigh Cash: Responsible for controlling and directing fire support for the platoon, Cash entered the raging battle in the ground convoy sent to rescue his besieged brothers in arms. “Through My Eyes,” by Mike Kurth: One of only two African Americans in the battle, Kurth confronted his buddies’ deaths, realizing that “the only people whom I had let get anywhere near me since I was a child were gone.” “What Was Left Behind,” by John Belman: He roped into the biggest firefight of the battle and considers some of the mistakes that were made, such as using Black Hawk helicopters to provide sniper cover. “Be Careful What You Wish For,” by Tim Wilkinson: He was one of the Air Force pararescuemen or PJs–the highly trained specialists for whom “That Others May Live” is no catchphrase but a credo–and sums up his incomprehensible courage as “just holding up my end of the deal on a bad day.” “On Friendship and Firefights,” by Dan Schilling: As a combat controller, he was one of the original planners for the deployment of SOF forces to Mogadishu in the spring of 1993. During the battle, he survived the initial assault and carnage of the vehicle convoys only to return to the city to rescue his two closest friends, becoming, literally, “Last Out.” With America’s withdrawal from Somalia an oft-cited incitement to Osama bin Laden, it is imperative to revisit this seminal military mission and learn its lessons from the men who were there and, amazingly, are still here.

Download or read book Guests of the Ayatollah written by Mark Bowden and published by Open Road + Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 2007-12-01 with total page 710 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times–bestselling author of Black Hawk Down delivers a “suspenseful and inspiring” account of the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979 (The Wall Street Journal). On November 4, 1979, a group of radical Islamist students, inspired by the revolutionary Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini, stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran. They took fifty-two Americans captive, and kept nearly all of them hostage for 444 days. In Guests of the Ayatollah, Mark Bowden tells this sweeping story through the eyes of the hostages, the soldiers in a new special forces unit sent to free them, their radical, naïve captors, and the diplomats working to end the crisis. Bowden takes us inside the hostages’ cells and inside the Oval Office for meetings with President Carter and his exhausted team. We travel to international capitals where shadowy figures held clandestine negotiations, and to the deserts of Iran, where a courageous, desperate attempt to rescue the hostages exploded into tragic failure. Bowden dedicated five years to this research, including numerous trips to Iran and countless interviews with those involved on both sides. Guests of the Ayatollah is a detailed, brilliantly recreated, and suspenseful account of a crisis that gripped and ultimately changed the world. “The passions of the moment still reverberate . . . you can feel them on every page.” —Time “A complex story full of cruelty, heroism, foolishness and tragic misunderstandings.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette “Essential reading . . . A.” —Entertainment Weekly

Download or read book Worm written by Mark Bowden and published by Grove/Atlantic, Inc.. This book was released on 2011-09-27 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the bestselling author of Black Hawk Down, the gripping story of the Conficker worm—the cyberattack that nearly toppled the world. The Conficker worm infected its first computer in November 2008, and within a month had infiltrated 1.5 million computers in 195 countries. Banks, telecommunications companies, and critical government networks—including British Parliament and the French and German military—became infected almost instantaneously. No one had ever seen anything like it. By January 2009, the worm lay hidden in at least eight million computers, and the botnet of linked computers it had created was big enough that an attack might crash the world. In this “masterpiece” (The Philadelphia Inquirer), Mark Bowden expertly lays out a spellbinding tale of how hackers, researchers, millionaire Internet entrepreneurs, and computer security experts found themselves drawn into a battle between those determined to exploit the Internet and those committed to protecting it.

Download or read book The Steal written by Mark Bowden and published by Atlantic Monthly Press. This book was released on 2022-01-04 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A gripping ground-level narrative…a marvel of reporting: tightly wound… but also panoramic.”—Washington Post “A lean, fast-paced and important account of the chaotic final weeks.”—New York Times In The Steal, veteran journalists Mark Bowden and Matthew Teague offer a week-by-week, state-by-state account of the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election. In the sixty-four days between November 3 and January 6, President Donald Trump and his allies fought to reverse the outcome of the vote. Focusing on six states—Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—Trump’s supporters claimed widespread voter fraud. Caught up in this effort were scores of activists, lawyers, judges, and state and local officials. Working with a team of researchers and reporters, Bowden and Teague uncover never-before-told accounts from the election officials fighting to do their jobs amid outlandish claims and threats to themselves, their colleagues, and their families. The Steal is an engaging, in-depth report on what happened during those crucial nine weeks and a portrait of the dedicated individuals who did their duty and stood firm against the unprecedented, sustained attack on our election system and ensured that every legal vote was counted and that the will of the people prevailed.

Download or read book Black Hawk Down written by Ken Nolan and published by Newmarket Press. This book was released on 2002-03-25 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New in the acclaimed series—based on the bestselling book by Mark Bowden, the new movie from acclaimed director Ridley Scott (Gladiator), and renowned producer Jerry Bruckheimer (Pearl Harbor) starring Josh Hartnett, coming from Revolution Studios and distributed by Columbia Pictures in January 2002. Based on actual events, Black Hawk Down is the heroic account of a group of elite US soldiers sent into Mogadishu, Somalia in 1993 as part of a UN peacekeeping operation to quell the civil war and famine ravaging the country. Young Rangers and veteran Delta Force soldiers fight side by side against overwhelming odds. For eighteen harrowing hours, outnumbered and surrounded, tensions flare, friends are lost, alliances are formed and soldiers learn the true nature of war and heroism. The cast also includes: Eric Bana, Ewan McGregor, Tom Sizemore, William Fichiner, and Sam Shepard. 20 b/w photos. credits.

Download or read book Our Finest Day written by Mark Bowden and published by Chronicle Books. This book was released on 2002-04 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In "Our Finest Day, " the bestselling author of "Black Hawk Down" reveals the human faces behind D-Day, using reproductions of personal letters, poignant journal entries from soldiers, secret dispatches and pages from code books, and strategic battle plans and maps. Interactive pull-out historical documents.

Download or read book In the Company of Heroes written by Michael J. Durant and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2004-05-04 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Revealing never-before-told stories with the incisive thought and emotion of one who was there. "The author does not pull any punches...his story, is one of great bravery, of going to hell and making it back." —Indianapolis Star His battered face appeared on the cover of Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Report to the shock and horror of all Americans. Black Hawk pilot Mike Durant was shot down and taken prisoner during America's biggest firefight since the Vietnam War. Published in the tenth anniversary year of the Somali conflict, this gripping personal account at last tells the world about Durant's harrowing captivity and the heroic deeds of his doomed comrades. And, as readers will discover, Durant proves himself to be nothing less than a hero.

Download or read book Summary of Mark Bowden s Black Hawk Down written by Everest Media, and published by Everest Media LLC. This book was released on 2022-03-26T22:59:00Z with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 In the lead humvee, Staff Sgt. Jeff Struecker's heart sank as he saw people running around on the tarmac. He had three humvees full of wounded soldiers to get back to base, and he was worried about getting through the crowd. #2 When the soldiers started catching rounds from a different direction, Galentine and Telscher ran to an alley. There, they came face to face with a Somali woman. Galentine had been very close to killing this woman. #3 Eversmann had three Rangers injured, one critically, and he had gotten them out. He radioed First Lt. Larry Perino, the Chalk One commander, that he had taken two more casualties. From across the street, Sgt. Telscher shouted, Sgt.

Download or read book Finders Keepers written by Virginia M. Bolen and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2008-11-24 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When author Virginia M. Bolen found a watch in the parking lot of the shelter in which she volunteered in August of 1997, she had no idea the trouble that would follow. In Finders Keepers, she shares her story of being arrested and charged with felony theft in a small town in Montana. This accounts narrates Bolens encounter with a justice system run amuck. She describes what happened to her and how she fought back over a period of years to gain vindication. She was harassed, intimidated, jailed, and pilloried in the press for a crime that law enforcement knew she didnt commit. Through her own words, public records, correspondence, and newspaper articles, she portrays the personalities involved, including jail inmates (even the girlfriend of a serial killer), sheriffs deputies, county attorneys, bridge players, the mother of a world champion poker player, and a Montana State Senator. Finders Keepers gives insight into the personalities and mindset of authorities, who ignoring facts and common sense, persist in yielding their power. Its a case thats been followed by the legal community, even outside of Montana, because of its challenge to prosecutorial immunity.

Download or read book The Case of the Vanishing Blonde written by Mark Bowden and published by Atlantic Books. This book was released on 2020-07-09 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Six captivating true-crime stories, spanning Mark Bowden's long and illustrious career, cover a variety of crimes complicated by extraordinary circumstances. In The Case of the Vanishing Blonde, the veteran reporter revisits some of his most riveting stories and examines the effects of modern technology on the journalistic process. From a story of a campus rape in 1983, to three cold cases solved by the inimitable private detective Ken Brennan, an LAPD investigation that unearths a murderer within its own ranks and the darkest corners of internet chatrooms, this collection contains all the best the genre has to offer. Gripping true crime from 'an old pro' ( Wall Street Journal).

Download or read book Phase Line Green written by Nicholas Warr and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2013-01-15 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The bloody, month-long battle for the Citadel in Hue during 1968 pitted U.S. Marines against an entrenched, numerically superior North Vietnamese Army force. By official U.S. accounts it was a tactical and moral victory for the Marines and the United States. But a survivor's compulsion to square official accounts with his contrasting experience has produced an entirely different perspective of the battle, the most controversial to emerge from the Vietnam War in decades. In some of the most frank, vivid prose to come out of the war, author Nicholas Warr describes with urgency and outrage the Marines' savage house-to-house fighting, ordered without air, naval, or artillery support by officers with no experience in this type of deadly combat. Sparing few in the telling, including himself, Warr's shocking firsthand narrative of these desperate suicide charges, which devastated whole companies, takes the wraps off an incident that many would prefer to keep hidden. His account is sure to ignite heated debate among historians and military professionals. Despite senseless rules of engagement and unspeakable carnage, there were unforgettable acts of courage and self-sacrifice performed by ordinary men asked to accomplish the impossible, and Warr is at his best relating these stories. For example, there's the grenade-throwing mortarman who in a rage wipes out two machine-gun emplacements that had pinned down an entire company for days, and the fortunate grunt with thick glasses who stumbles blindly—without receiving a scratch—across a street littered with the dead and dying who hadn't made it. In describing the most vicious urban combat since World War II, this account offers an unparalleled view of how a small unit commander copes with the conflicting demands and responsibilities thrust upon him by the enemy, his men, and the chain of command.

Download or read book Eagle Down written by Jessica Donati and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2021-01-19 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Wall Street Journal national security reporter takes readers into the lives of frontline U.S. special operations troops fighting to keep the Taliban and Islamic State from overthrowing the U.S.-backed government in the final years of the war in Afghanistan. A FINANCIAL TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR “Powerful, important, and searing." —General David Petraeus, U.S. Army (ret.), former commander, U.S. Central Command, former CIA director In 2015, the White House claimed triumphantly that “the longest war in American history” was over. But for some, it was just the beginning of a new war, fought by Special Operations Forces, with limited resources, little governmental oversight, and contradictory orders. With big picture insight and on-the-ground grit, Jessica Donati shares the stories of the impossible choices these soldiers must make. After the fall of a major city to the Taliban that year, Hutch, a battle-worn Green Beret on his fifth combat tour was ordered on a secret mission to recapture it and inadvertently called in an airstrike on a Doctors Without Borders hospital, killing dozens. Caleb stepped on a bomb during a mission in notorious Sangin. Andy was trapped with his team during a raid with a crashed Black Hawk and no air support. Through successive policy directives under the Obama and Trump administrations, America came to rely almost entirely on US Special Forces, and without a long-term plan, failed to stabilize Afghanistan, undermining US interests both at home and abroad. Eagle Down is a riveting account of the heroism, sacrifice, and tragedy experienced by those that fought America’s longest war.