Download or read book Where Valor Rests written by Rick Atkinson and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2015 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bittersweet, breathtaking, and deeply respectful, this commemorative book of Arlington National Cemetery traces the ceremonies and services that honor individual men and women who served the country. 220 photos.
Download or read book On Hallowed Ground written by Robert M. Poole and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2010-11-08 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Documents the founding of the monument cemetery on the former family plantation of Robert E. Lee, revealing how the site once intended for the burials of indigent soldiers became a national resting place of honor throughout the subsequent century.
Download or read book Twenty One Steps Guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier written by Jeff Gottesfeld and published by Candlewick Press. This book was released on 2021-03-16 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With every step, the Tomb Guards pay homage to America’s fallen. Discover their story, and that of the unknown soldiers they honor, through resonant words and illustrations. Keeping vigil at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, in Arlington National Cemetery, are the sentinel guards, whose every step, every turn, honors and remembers America’s fallen. They protect fellow soldiers who have paid the ultimate sacrifice, making sure they are never alone. To stand there—with absolute precision, in every type of weather, at every moment of the day, one in a line uninterrupted since midnight July 2, 1937—is the ultimate privilege and the most difficult post to earn in the army. Everything these men and women do is in service to the Unknowns. Their standard is perfection. Exactly how the unnamed men came to be entombed at Arlington, and exactly how their fellow soldiers have come to keep vigil over them, is a sobering and powerful tale, told by Jeff Gottesfeld and luminously illustrated by Matt Tavares—a tale that honors the soldiers who honor the fallen.
Download or read book Beyond Valor written by Jon Erwin and published by Thomas Nelson. This book was released on 2020-08-18 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On April 12, 1945, a fleet of American B-29 bombers flew toward Japan. Their mission was simple: Stop World War II by burning the cities, factories, and military bases of the Japanese empire, thereby forcing an unconditional surrender. But it didn't go as planned. Beyond Valor is one soldier's extraordinary tale of bravery, faith, and devotion. Onboard one of the B-29s, the City of Los Angeles, a phosphorus bomb detonated inside the plane. Staff Sergeant Henry E. "Red" Erwin absorbed the blast of burning phosphorus and managed to throw the still-flaming bomb overboard before collapsing from the third-degree burns that covered his body. Breaking protocol, the plane diverted to a military hospital at Iwo Jima. President Truman quickly ordered that Erwin be awarded the Medal of Honor, the highest honor of the American military. Drawn from in-depth interviews with eyewitnesses and deep archival research, Beyond Valor tells the gripping story of Erwin's life--from his upbringing in the suburbs of Birmingham, Alabama to his enduring commitment to supporting veterans. Beyond Valor gives you a front-row seat to Erwin's amazing life and legacy. Along the way, you'll learn: How Erwin's childhood in Birmingham shaped his faith and his family How a split-second decision changed the course of his life The countless ways that Erwin chose to give back to his fellow veterans after he returned home Beyond Valor is about more than that fateful day in April 1945. It's a story of one man's journey from the ultimate despair to a place beyond service, beyond honor, and beyond valor: a life illuminated by the light of God's love.
Download or read book Arlington National Cemetery and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier written by Jinnow Khalid and published by The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc. This book was released on 2017-07-15 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United States commemorates unidentified fallen soldiers in a special way. All unknown soldiers that have lost their lives since World War I are honored through tombs, which symbolize the courage and bravery possessed by the unknown people buried inside them. Arlington Cemetery, home to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, boasts a peaceful atmosphere appropriate for the burial ground of hundreds of thousands of United States soldiers. This title uses primary sources and stunning imagery to introduce students to the history behind one of the country’s most unifying institutions.
Download or read book The Outpost written by Jake Tapper and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2012-11-13 with total page 789 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The basis of the film starring Orlando Bloom and Scott Eastwood, The Outpost is the heartbreaking and inspiring story of one of America's deadliest battles during the war in Afghanistan, acclaimed by critics everywhere as a classic. At 5:58 AM on October 3rd, 2009, Combat Outpost Keating, located in frighteningly vulnerable terrain in Afghanistan just 14 miles from the Pakistani border, was viciously attacked. Though the 53 Americans there prevailed against nearly 400 Taliban fighters, their casualties made it the deadliest fight of the war for the U.S. that year. Four months after the battle, a Pentagon review revealed that there was no reason for the troops at Keating to have been there in the first place. In The Outpost, Jake Tapper gives us the powerful saga of COP Keating, from its establishment to eventual destruction, introducing us to an unforgettable cast of soldiers and their families, and to a place and war that has remained profoundly distant to most Americans. A runaway bestseller, it makes a savage war real, and American courage manifest. "The Outpost is a mind-boggling, all-too-true story of heroism, hubris, failed strategy, and heartbreaking sacrifice. If you want to understand how the war in Afghanistan went off the rails, you need to read this book." -- Jon Krakauer
Download or read book Road to Valour written by Aili McConnon and published by Phoenix. This book was released on 2013-06-20 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An Italian SCHINDLER'S LIST, this is the inspirational story of Gino Bartali, who made the greatest comeback in Tour de France history and secretly aided the Italian Resistance during the Second World War. ROAD TO VALOUR is the inspiring, against-the-odds story of Gino Bartali, the cyclist who made the greatest comeback in Tour de France history and still holds the record for the longest gap between victories. Yet it was his actions during the Second World War, when he secretly aided the Resistance, rather than his remarkable exploits on a bike, that truly cemented his place in the hearts and minds of the Italian people. Based on nearly ten years of research, and including fascinating new interviews, this is the only book written that fully explores the scope of Bartali's wartime work. A breathtaking account of one man's unsung heroism and his resilience in the face of adversity, this is an epic tale of courage, comeback and redemption, and the untold story of one of the greatest athletes of the twentieth century.
Download or read book Valor s Choice written by Tanya Huff and published by Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.. This book was released on 2022-07-29 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tanya Huff—acclaimed author of the Blood Series—begins her celebrated Confederation series that will launch readers into a future where Humans are not the most evolved species... Good thing they can take orders. Brought into the multi-species Confederation, Humans earn their place along the Taykan and the Krai by acting as military guardians of the Elder Races, who have risen above societal aggression and violence. When Staff Sergeant Torin Kerr and her platoon are dragged from some well-deserved R&R to play honor guard for a diplomatic mission to the non-Confederation planet of the Silsviss, Torin suspects that something is about to go wrong. You don't make staff sergeant in the CMC without a well-developed sense of paranoia. Justified paranoia when word reaches them that the enemy has been spotted in this sector of space. The diplomatic mission becomes a race to recruit the Silsviss into the Confederation before the enemy returns, claims the reptilian warriors as their own, and turns them loose on the Confederation. One battle-weary platoon has to step up to stop the slaughter.
Download or read book Arlington National Cemetery written by Charles River Charles River Editors and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2015-01-27 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures *Explains the transformation of Arlington from a private estate to a military cemetery *Includes contemporary accounts describing Arlington and its history *Includes a bibliography for further reading *Includes a table of contents "Looking across this field, we see the scale of heroism and sacrifice. All who are buried here understood their duty. All stood to protect America. And all carried with them memories of a family that they hoped to keep safe by their sacrifice." - President George W. Bush, 2005 Cemeteries are by their very nature tragic places, as they would never exist were it not for the inevitably cold hand of death that will certainly take out each person eventually. Given that fact, each bears its own unique history, whether it be the Valley of the Kings in Egypt or a small family plot in rural Georgia. Naturally, Arlington National Cemetery, sitting as it does on the very edge of the nation's capital upon a hill across the Potomac River, bears its own tragic aura, but it's certainly ironic that it was never intended to be a cemetery at all. Indeed, the very land was not meant to house the nation's dead but to support the family of the nation's father, George Washington himself. How Arlington went within just a few tragic months from stately mansion to solemn sepulcher is one of the most unusual stories in American history, but in many ways it is also one of the most fitting. As author Karl Decker observed in 1892, "It stands as a connecting link between the historic time of struggle, in which the Government was first established, and the later and equally important years of strife that saw the principles for which the colonists fought once more triumphant, and the fabric of Constitutional Government more firmly based upon a federation of loyal States. With every important epoch in the history of the country Arlington has had its connection. It brings forth recollections of Washington as vividly as phantoms of the past century." Nothing could emphasize how divisive the Civil War was than the fate of Arlington, which was the place Confederate general Robert E. Lee called home. By marrying into the Custis family, Lee merged his family with relatives of Washington, but during the war, the fact that the Confederacy's most famous general had a house overlooking the Union capital bedeviled many, especially politicians. When the war's ghastly carnage filled up cemeteries around Washington, U.S. Army Quartermaster General Montgomery Meigs ultimately proposed using Arlington as a cemetery, both for its location and for its connection with Lee, and Union soldiers were being buried near Lee's estate nearly a year before the war ended. Although the government would negotiate with Lee's family over the property after the war, from that point forward the cemetery expanded, and in addition to becoming the resting place for veterans, memorials and monuments of all kinds are scattered across the grounds. While the Lee house is still a tourist attraction, the grave site of slain president John F. Kennedy is on the grounds, as is a monument to the USS Maine and similar other tragedies. Arlington National Cemetery: The History of America's Most Famous Military Cemetery traces the history and legacy of the national park. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the history of Arlington Cemetery like never before, in no time at all.
Download or read book Valor s Trial written by Tanya Huff and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2008 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A veteran Confederation Marine gunnery sergeant, Torin Kerr is unexpectedly pulled from the battlefield and confined to an underground POW camp, where she must not only find a way to escape, but also overcome the compulsion--which has affected her fellow Marine prisoners--to give up and accept her fate.
Download or read book Red Platoon written by Clinton Romesha and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016-05-03 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The only comprehensive, firsthand account of the fourteen-hour firefight at the Battle of Keating in Afghanistan by Medal of Honor recipient Clinton Romesha, for readers of Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden and Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell. “‘It doesn't get better.’ To us, that phrase nailed one of the essential truths, maybe even the essential truth, about being stuck at an outpost whose strategic and tactical vulnerabilities were so glaringly obvious to every soldier who had ever set foot in that place that the name itself—Keating—had become a kind of backhanded joke.” In 2009, Clinton Romesha of Red Platoon and the rest of the Black Knight Troop were preparing to shut down Command Outpost (COP) Keating, the most remote and inaccessible in a string of bases built by the US military in Nuristan and Kunar in the hope of preventing Taliban insurgents from moving freely back and forth between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Three years after its construction, the army was finally ready to concede what the men on the ground had known immediately: it was simply too isolated and too dangerous to defend. On October 3, 2009, after years of constant smaller attacks, the Taliban finally decided to throw everything they had at Keating. The ensuing fourteen-hour battle—and eventual victory—cost eight men their lives. Red Platoon is the riveting firsthand account of the Battle of Keating, told by Romesha, who spearheaded both the defense of the outpost and the counterattack that drove the Taliban back beyond the wire and received the Medal of Honor for his actions.
Download or read book Valor written by John Gwynne and published by Orbit. This book was released on 2014-07-22 with total page 734 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: War has erupted in the Banished Lands as the race for power intensifies. Corban flees his homeland searching for peace, but he soon discovers that there is no haven in the west as the agents of Rhin and roaming bands of giants hound his every step. Veradis leaves the battleground and rushes to his King's side. But he has witnessed both combat and betrayal and his duty weighs heavily upon him. Maquin seeks only revenge, but pirate slavers and the brutal world of pit-fighting stand in his way. Nathair becomes embroiled in the wars of the west as Queen Rhin marches against King Owain. The need to find the cauldron of the giants drives him on. Sides are chosen and oaths will be fulfilled or broken in a land where hell has broken loose.
Download or read book Immortal Valor written by Robert Child and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-01-06 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The remarkable story of the seven African American soldiers ultimately awarded the World War II Medal of Honor, and the 50-year campaign to deny them their recognition. In 1945, when Congress began reviewing the record of the most conspicuous acts of courage by American soldiers during World War II, they recommended awarding the Medal of Honor to 432 recipients. Despite the fact that more than one million African-Americans served, not a single black soldier received the Medal of Honor. The omission remained on the record for over four decades. But recent historical investigations have brought to light some of the extraordinary acts of valor performed by black soldiers during the war. Men like Vernon Baker, who single-handedly eliminated three enemy machineguns, an observation post, and a German dugout. Or Sergeant Reuben Rivers, who spearhead his tank unit's advance against fierce German resistance for three days despite being grievously wounded. Meanwhile Lieutenant Charles Thomas led his platoon to capture a strategically vital village on the Siegfried Line in 1944 despite losing half his men and suffering a number of wounds himself. Ultimately, in 1993 a US Army commission determined that seven men, including Baker, Rivers and Thomas, had been denied the Army's highest award simply due to racial discrimination. In 1997, more than 50 years after the war, President Clinton finally awarded the Medal of Honor to these seven heroes, sadly all but one of them posthumously. These are their stories.
Download or read book Valor written by Dan Hampton and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2022-05-03 with total page 459 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Valor is the magnificent story of a genuine American hero who survived the fall of the Philippines and brutal captivity under the Japanese, from New York Times bestselling author Dan Hampton. Lieutenant William Frederick “Bill” Harris was 25 years old when captured by Japanese forces during the Battle of Corregidor in May 1942. This son of a decorated Marine general escaped from hell on earth by swimming eight hours through a shark-infested bay; but his harrowing ordeal had just begun. Shipwrecked on the southern coast of the Philippines, he was sheltered by a Filipino aristocrat, engaged in guerilla fighting, and eventually set off through hostile waters to China. After 29 days of misadventures and violent storms, Harris and his crew limped into a friendly fishing village in the southern Philippines. Evading and fighting for months, he embarked on another agonizing voyage to Australia, but was betrayed by treacherous islanders and handed over to the Japanese. Held for two years in the notorious Ofuna prisoner-of-war camp outside Yokohama, Harris was continuously starved, tortured, and beaten, but he never surrendered. Teaching himself Japanese, he eavesdropped on the guards and created secret codes to communicate with fellow prisoners. After liberation on August 30, 1945, Bill represented American Marine POWs during the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay before joining his father and flying to a home he had not seen in four years. Valor is a riveting new look at the Pacific War. Through military documents, personal photos, and an unpublished memoir provided by his daughter, Harris’ experiences are dramatically revealed through his own words in the expert hands of bestselling author and retired fighter pilot Dan Hampton. This is the stunning and captivating true story of an American hero.
Download or read book The Better Part of Valor written by Tanya Huff and published by Astra Publishing House. This book was released on 2007-06-05 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second book in Tanya Huff's action-packed military sci-fi adventure Confederation series Never tell a two-star general what you really think of him.... That was the mistake Staff Sergeant Torin Kerr made with General Morris. But as a battle-hardened professional, she took pride in doing her job and getting her troops back alive. So after she'd saved the mission to bring the Silviss into the Confederation—instead of losing them and their world to the enemy known only as the Others—she let the general know exactly how she felt. And Torin’s reward—or punishment—was to be separated from her platoon and sent off on what might well prove an even more perilous assignment. She was commandeered to protect a scientific expedition to a newly discovered and seemingly derelict spaceship of truly epic proportions. And Confederation politics had saddled her with a commanding officer who might prove more of a menace to the mission’s success than anything they encountered. Only time would tell if the ship was what it appeared to be, or a trap created by the Others—or the work of an as-yet unknown alien race with an agenda that could prove all too hostile to other life forms....
Download or read book Unknown Valor written by Martha MacCallum and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2020-02-25 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER. In honor of the 75th Anniversary of one of the most critical battles of World War II, the popular primetime Fox News anchor of The Story with Martha MacCallum pays tribute to the heroic men who sacrificed everything at Iwo Jima to defeat the Armed Forces of Emperor Hirohito—among them, a member of her own family, Harry Gray. Admiral Chester Nimitz spoke of the “uncommon valor” of the men who fought on Iwo Jima, one of the bloodiest and most brutal battles of World War II. In thirty-six grueling days, nearly 7,000 Marines were killed and 22,000 were wounded. Martha MacCallum takes us from Pearl Harbor to Iwo Jima through the lives of these men of valor, among them Harry Gray, a member of her own family. In Unknown Valor, she weaves their stories—from Boston, Massachusetts, to Gulfport, Mississippi, as told through letters and recollections—into the larger history of what American military leaders rightly saw as an eventual showdown in the Pacific with Japan. In a relentless push through the jungles of Guadalcanal, over the coral reefs of Tarawa, past the bloody ridge of Peleliu, against the banzai charges of Guam, and to the cliffs of Saipan, these men were on a path that ultimately led to the black sands of Iwo Jima, the doorstep of the Japanese Empire. Meticulously researched, heart-wrenching, and illuminating, Unknown Valor reveals the sacrifices of ordinary Marines who saved the world from tyranny and left indelible marks on those back home who loved them.
Download or read book The Gift of Valor written by Michael M. Phillips and published by Crown. This book was released on 2005-05-31 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The true story of US Marine Corporal Jason Dunham's brave act that saved fellow Marines and earned him the Congressional Medal of Honor. Corporal Dunham was on patrol near the Syrian border, on April 14, 2004, when a black-clad Iraqi leaped out of a car and grabbed him around his neck. Fighting hand-to-hand in the dirt, Dunham saw his attacker drop a grenade and made the instantaneous decision to place his own helmet over the explosive in the hope of containing the blast and protecting his men. When the smoke cleared, Dunham’s helmet was in shreds, and the corporal lay face down in his own blood. The Marines beside him were seriously wounded. Dunham was subsequently nominated for the Congressional Medal of Honor, the nation’ s highest award for military valor. Phillips’s minute-by-minute chronicle of the chaotic fighting that raged throughout the area and culminated in Dunham’s injury provides a grunt’s-eye view of war as it’s being fought today—fear, confusion, bravery, and suffering set against a brotherhood forged in combat. His account of Dunham’s eight-day journey home and of his parents’ heartrending reunion with their son powerfully illustrates the cold brutality of war and the fragile humanity of those who fight it. Dunham leaves an indelible mark upon all who know his story, from the doctors and nurses who treat him, to the readers of the original Wall Street Journal article that told of his singular act of valor.
