Download or read book Rebuilding Sergeant Peck written by John Peck and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-05-07 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "I met Marine Sgt. John Peck, a quadruple amputee who has received a double arm transplant, at Walter Reed in 2017. Today, it was my honor to welcome John (HERO) to the Oval, with his wonderful wife Jessica. He also wrote a book that I highly recommend, Rebuilding Sergeant Peck."—President Donald Trump Marine Sgt. John Peck survived an IED during the War on Terror that left him with a traumatic brain injury, amnesia, and cost him his marriage. He survived another three years later, one that left him with three and a half limbs missing. He’s one of only two living people to survive the flesh-eating fungus he contracted in recovery at Walter Reed, one that left him as a quadruple amputee. And that’s only the beginning of his story. What followed was a recovery nothing short of miraculous. With resilience and the help of advocates like actor and philanthropist Gary Sinise, FOX’s Jennifer Griffin, and Bill O’Reilly, John would use a specialized “Action Trackchair” wheelchair and a newly-built SmartHome to get a third lease on life. In 2016, Peck underwent a groundbreaking bilateral arm transplant, receiving two new arms. To date, the surgery has been successful. Today, Peck is a motivational speaker, a philanthropist for veteran and wounded warrior causes, and is pursuing his lifelong dream of becoming a chef with the help of Chef Robert Irvine. From the lessons learned in a difficult childhood and as a homeless teenager, to dealing with depression in recovery, to learning how to chop with another man’s arms, Rebuilding Sergeant Peck is Peck’s account of an honest, visceral, and inspirational story that is truly unique.

Download or read book Eat the Apple written by Matt Young and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2018-02-27 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Iliad of the Iraq war" (Tim Weiner)--a gut-wrenching, beautiful memoir of the consequences of war on the psyche of a young man. Eat the Apple is a daring, twisted, and darkly hilarious story of American youth and masculinity in an age of continuous war. Matt Young joined the Marine Corps at age eighteen after a drunken night culminating in wrapping his car around a fire hydrant. The teenage wasteland he fled followed him to the training bases charged with making him a Marine. Matt survived the training and then not one, not two, but three deployments to Iraq, where the testosterone, danger, and stakes for him and his fellow grunts were dialed up a dozen decibels. With its kaleidoscopic array of literary forms, from interior dialogues to infographics to prose passages that read like poetry, Young's narrative powerfully mirrors the multifaceted nature of his experience. Visceral, ironic, self-lacerating, and ultimately redemptive, Young's story drops us unarmed into Marine Corps culture and lays bare the absurdism of 21st-century war, the manned-up vulnerability of those on the front lines, and the true, if often misguided, motivations that drove a young man to a life at war. Searing in its honesty, tender in its vulnerability, and brilliantly written, Eat the Apple is a modern war classic in the making and a powerful coming-of-age story that maps the insane geography of our times.

Download or read book I Wonder What My Marine Is Doing Now written by Fritz Stokes and published by Little Oaks Publishing. This book was released on 2020-03-20 with total page 30 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When your Marine is gone from the home, here is a book to help your child cope with their absence. What does a Marine do on a daily basis? What does he eat? Where does he sleep? How does he take a bath? These and many other questions are answered in this beautifully illustrated children's book.

Download or read book Sergeant Rex written by Mike Dowling and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-10-09 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The thrilling and inspiring story of a U.S. Marine and his dog Rex, a bomb sniffing German Shepard, who forged a bond of trust and loyalty while serving on the war-torn streets of Iraq's most dangerous city. Called "a deeply affecting tale of courage and devotion in the cauldron of war" by Publishers Weekly, Sergeant Mike Dowling's heart-pounding account of an unbreakable bond between man and dog takes us into the searing 130-degree heat, the choking dust, and the ever-present threat of violent attack in Iraq's infamous Triangle of Death. In 2004, Dowling and his military working dog Rex were part of the first Marine Corps military K9 teams sent to the front lines of combat since Vietnam. It was Rex's job to sniff out weapons caches, suicide bombers, and IEDs, the devastating explosives that wreaked havoc on troops and civilians. It was Mike's job to lead Rex into the heart of danger. An extraordinary chronicle of loyalty in the face of terrible adversity, Sergeant Rex is an unforgettable story of sacrifice, courage, and love.

Download or read book One Bullet Away written by Nathaniel Fick and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2006 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An ex-Marine captain shares his story of fighting in a recon battalion in both Afghanistan and Iraq, beginning with his brutal training on Quantico Island and following his progress through various training sessions and, ultimately, conflict in the deadliest conflicts since the Vietnam War.

Download or read book Make Your Bed written by Admiral William H. McRaven and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 2017-04-04 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on a Navy SEAL's inspiring graduation speech, this #1 New York Times bestseller of powerful life lessons "should be read by every leader in America" (Wall Street Journal). If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed. On May 17, 2014, Admiral William H. McRaven addressed the graduating class of the University of Texas at Austin on their Commencement day. Taking inspiration from the university's slogan, "What starts here changes the world," he shared the ten principles he learned during Navy Seal training that helped him overcome challenges not only in his training and long Naval career, but also throughout his life; and he explained how anyone can use these basic lessons to change themselves-and the world-for the better. Admiral McRaven's original speech went viral with over 10 million views. Building on the core tenets laid out in his speech, McRaven now recounts tales from his own life and from those of people he encountered during his military service who dealt with hardship and made tough decisions with determination, compassion, honor, and courage. Told with great humility and optimism, this timeless book provides simple wisdom, practical advice, and words of encouragement that will inspire readers to achieve more, even in life's darkest moments. "Powerful." --USA Today "Full of captivating personal anecdotes from inside the national security vault." --Washington Post "Superb, smart, and succinct." --Forbes

Download or read book We Ll All Die as Marines written by Colonel Jim Bathurst USMC (Retired) and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2012-12-03 with total page 565 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For seventeen-year-old high school dropout Jim Bathurst, the Marine Corps’s reputation for making men out of boys was something he desperately needed when he enlisted in March of 1958. What began as a four-year hitch lasted nearly thirty-six years and included an interesting assortment of duty stations and assignments as both enlisted and officer. We’ll All Die As Marines narrates a story about a young, free-spirited kid from Dundalk, Maryland, and how the Corps captured his body, mind, and spirit. Slowly, but persistently, the Corps transformed him into someone whose first love would forever be the United States Marine Corps. It documents not only his leadership, service, and training but also regales many tales of his fellow Marines that will have the reader laughing, cheering, and at times crying. In this memoir, Bathurst reveals that for him—a former DI who was awarded the Silver Star, Bronze Star Medal with Combat “V”, Purple Heart, and a combat commission to second lieutenant—the Corps was not a job, a career, or even a profession; it was—and still is—a way of life.

Download or read book Making the Corps written by Thomas E. Ricks and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1998 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inside the marine corps and what it takes to become "One of the few, the proud, the Marines."

Download or read book Unbecoming written by Anuradha Bhagwati and published by Atria Books. This book was released on 2020-03-03 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brimming “with the ebullient Bhagwati’s fierce humanism, seething humor, and change-maker righteousness,” (Shelf Awareness) a raw, unflinching memoir by a former US Marine Captain chronicling her journey from dutiful daughter of immigrants to radical activist fighting for historic policy reform. After a lifetime of buckling to the demands of her strict Indian parents, Anuradha Bhagwati abandons grad school in the Ivy League to join the Marines—the fiercest, most violent, most masculine branch of the military—determined to prove herself there in ways she couldn’t before. Yet once training begins, Anuradha’s GI Jane fantasy is punctured. As a bisexual woman of color in the military, she faces underestimation at every stage, confronting misogyny, racism, sexual violence, and astonishing injustice perpetrated by those in power. Pushing herself beyond her limits, she also wrestles with what drove her to pursue such punishment in the first place. Once her service concludes in 2004, Anuradha courageously vows to take to task the very leaders and traditions that cast such a dark cloud over her time in the Marines. Her efforts result in historic change, including the lifting of the ban on women from pursuing combat roles in the military. “Bhagwati’s fight is both incensing and inspiring” (Booklist) in this tale of heroic resilience and grapples with the timely question of what, exactly, America stands for, showing how one woman learned to believe in herself in spite of everything.

Download or read book Embarrassing Confessions of a Marine Lieutenant written by Donny O'Malley and published by . This book was released on 2015-10-08 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Marine Infantry Officer confesses his lust for killing and f cking everything in sight, his desire to beat his boss's face in and frag the battalion staff, his willingness to risk Afghan civilians in order to save Marines, his burning desire to win a game of gay chicken at all costs, his personal mission to nail the combat reporter who joined his unit, his sexual arousal at the sight of ED (Enemy Death), and his inability to take serious things seriously; while planning and executing the last combat operation of his deployment in Afghanistan; a nighttime helicopter raid named, Operation Branding Iron Part 2.1A. (Continued from National Geographic's "Battlefield Afghanistan") This is undoubtedly the most honest and raw account of an Officer's thoughts and actions during combat that has ever been written. After publishing this book, Donny O'Malley's job options are now reduced to low level sales and day labor construction. It is still unclear how he ever made it out of the Marines without court martial. Senior officer's will slam him, military historians will be shocked, and all civilians will be 100% certain he's psychotic. Fortunately, the book is written for the opposite of those mentioned above. It's written for Enlisted guys. Officers who are brave enough to read will either cry themselves to sleep, jerk themselves off to Donny's picture, or will ask their buddies to write them up for an award with V for having the moral courage to finish the book.This book is a reach-around to all enlisted, and a F CK YOU to every Officer who has ever written a politically correct, full-of-sh t, "I'm a great leader," book about combat. Every single one of those fucking jerkoffs wrote a book for civilians that not a single enlisted guy ever gave two-shits about. The truth is that Marines love killing more than they love pvssy; they fantasize about mowing down insurgents with a 240 on post while 70 virgins take turns blowing them.This is who we are, and I'm sick and tired of nerdy book writers hiding our reality from the public. F ck the public, they'll judge us and say we're psychotic until they watch an ISIS beheading video, and then they'll beg us to come out of our cage to fight the bad guys. At which time we'll head to the front line of evil and kill them all with a smile. Enjoy the read my brothers, this one's for you.

Download or read book War Is a Racket written by Smedley D. Butler and published by Wyatt North Publishing, LLC. This book was released on 2018-02-18 with total page 33 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: War Is a Racket is a famous anti-war book written by retired Major General Smedley Buter. In the book, Butler discusses how businesses profit from conflict.

Download or read book Faith Through the Storm written by Major James Capers, and published by Page Publishing Inc. This book was released on 2018-11-20 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a book about war. A war against America's enemies, against racism, against the loss of fellow warriors in battle, and against the personal loss of family back home. This is the story of Major James Capers, Jr. (USMC Ret.) Jim was born to a family of sharecroppers in South Carolina who escaped to Baltimore, Maryland in the dead of night to escape the days of Jim Crow laws for a better life. Joining the Marines fresh out of high school, Jim had no idea that he was paving the road for future Marines, black and white alike. The first African-American Marine to receive a battlefield commission as a member of 3rd Force Recon, a new special forces unit designed specifically for the war in Vietnam; the first African-American Marine officer used on a Marine recruitment poster; co-leader of the first special forces team to attempt the rescue of American and allied POW's held in a North Vietnamese prison; a leader in Team Broadminded, whose missions were so secret, their military records from Vietnam were not declassified until 2006; nominated for the Medal of Honor; inducted into the Commando Hall of Honor for special forces; awarded the Bronze and the Silver Stars. This book is about a man who is a true American hero, though he denies the notion. Above all, Jim is a husband, a father, a patriot, a warrior who has dealt with the tragedies of his military and personal life, always depending on his faith in God to guide him through the storm.

Download or read book They Called Us Lucky written by Ruben Gallego and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-11-09 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Arizona Congressman, a "powerful" and "searing" (PW) chronicle of the eternal bonds forged between the Marines of Lima Company, the hardest-hit unit of the Iraq War At first, they were “Lucky Lima.” Infantryman Ruben Gallego and his brothers in Lima Company—3rd Battalion, 25th Marines, young men drawn from blue-collar towns, immigrant households, Navajo reservations—returned unscathed on patrol after patrol through the increasingly violent al Anbar region of Iraq, looking for weapons caches and insurgents trying to destabilize the nascent Iraqi government. After two months in Iraq, Lima didn't have a casualty, not a single Purple Heart, no injury worse than a blister. Lucky Lima. Then, in May 2005, Lima’s fortunes flipped. Unknown to Ruben and his fellow grunts, al Anbar had recently become a haven for al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. The bin Laden-sponsored group had recruited radicals from all over the world for jihad against the Americans. On one fateful day, they were lured into a death house; the ambush cost the lives of two men, including a platoon sergeant. Two days later, Ruben’s best friend, Jonathon Grant, died in an IED attack, along with several others. Events worsened from there. A disastrous operation in Haditha in August claimed the lives of thirteen Marines when an IED destroyed their amphibious vehicle. It was the worst single-day loss for the Marines since the 1983 Beirut bombings. By the time 3/25 went home in November, it had lost more men than any other single unit in the war. Forty-six Marines and two Navy Corpsmen serving with the battalion in Iraq were killed in action during their roughly nine-month activation. They Called Us “Lucky” details Ruben Gallego’s journey and includes harrowing accounts of some of the war’s most costly battles. It details the struggles and the successes of Ruben—now a member of Congress—and the rest of Lima Company following Iraq, examining the complicated matter of PTSD. And it serves as a tribute to Ruben’s fallen comrades, who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country. With its gripping accounts of some of the war's most costly battles, They Called Us 'Lucky' is a must-read for anyone interested in military history and the politics of war. It offers a firsthand perspective on the Iraq War and the struggles faced by soldiers like Ruben Gallego, who served in the hardest hit company of the hardest hit battalion of the war and occupation.

Download or read book 2034 written by Elliot Ackerman and published by Thorndike Press Large Print. This book was released on 2021-08-11 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From two former military officers and award-winning authors, a chillingly authentic geopolitical thriller that imagines a naval clash between the US and China in the South China Sea in 2034 - and the path from there to a nightmarish global conflagration. On March 12, 2034, US Navy Commodore Sarah Hunt is on the bridge of her flagship, the guided missile destroyer USS John Paul Jones, conducting a routine freedom of navigation patrol in the South China Sea when her ship detects an unflagged trawler in clear distress, smoke billowing from its bridge. On that same day, US Marine aviator Major Chris "Wedge" Mitchell is flying an F35E Lightning over the Strait of Hormuz, testing a new stealth technology as he flirts with Iranian airspace. By the end of that day, Wedge will be an Iranian prisoner, and Sarah Hunt's destroyer will lie at the bottom of the sea, sunk by the Chinese Navy. Iran and China have clearly coordinated their moves, which involve the use of powerful new forms of cyber weaponry that render US ships and planes defenseless. In a single day, America's faith in its military's strategic preeminence is in tatters. A new, terrifying era is at hand. So begins a disturbingly plausible work of speculative fiction, coauthored by an award-winning novelist and decorated Marine veteran and the former commander of NATO, a legendary admiral who has spent much of his career strategically outmaneuvering America's most tenacious adversaries. Written with a powerful blend of geopolitical sophitication and human empathy, 2034 takes us inside the minds of a global cast of characters - Americans, Chinese, Iranians, Russians, Indians - as a series of arrogant miscalculations on all sides leads the world into an intensifying international storm. In the end, China and the United States will have paid a staggering cost, one that forever alters the global balance of power. Everything in 2034 is an imaginative extrapolation from present-day facts on the ground combined with the authors' years of working at the highest and most classified levels of national security. Sometimes it takes a brilliant work of fiction to illuminate the most dire of warnings: 2034 is all too close at hand, and this cautionary tale presents the readers a dark yet possible future that we must do all we can to avoid. --

Download or read book Underdogs written by Aaron B. O'Connell and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2012-10-29 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Marine Corps has always considered itself a breed apart. Since 1775, America’s smallest armed service has been suspicious of outsiders and deeply loyal to its traditions. Marines believe in nothing more strongly than the Corps’ uniqueness and superiority, and this undying faith in its own exceptionalism is what has made the Marines one of the sharpest, swiftest tools of American military power. Along with unapologetic self-promotion, a strong sense of identity has enabled the Corps to exert a powerful influence on American politics and culture. Aaron O’Connell focuses on the period from World War II to Vietnam, when the Marine Corps transformed itself from America’s least respected to its most elite armed force. He describes how the distinctive Marine culture played a role in this ascendancy. Venerating sacrifice and suffering, privileging the collective over the individual, Corps culture was saturated with romantic and religious overtones that had enormous marketing potential in a postwar America energized by new global responsibilities. Capitalizing on this, the Marines curried the favor of the nation’s best reporters, befriended publishers, courted Hollywood and Congress, and built a public relations infrastructure that would eventually brand it as the most prestigious military service in America. But the Corps’ triumphs did not come without costs, and O’Connell writes of those, too, including a culture of violence that sometimes spread beyond the battlefield. And as he considers how the Corps’ interventions in American politics have ushered in a more militarized approach to national security, O’Connell questions its sustainability.

Download or read book Voices of the Pacific written by Adam Makos and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the New York Times bestselling author of Spearhead and A Higher Call comes an unflinching, brutal, and relentless firsthand chronicle of United States Marine Corps' actions in the Pacific during World War 2. Following fifteen Marines from the Pearl Harbor attack, through battles with the Japanese, to their return home after V-J Day, Adam Makos and Marcus Brotherton have compiled an oral history of the Pacific War in the words of the men who fought on the front lines. With unflinching honesty, these Marines reveal harrowing accounts of combat with an implacable enemy, the friendships and camaraderie they found--and lost--and the aftermath of the war's impact on their lives. With unprecedented access to the veterans, rare photographs, and unpublished memoirs, Voices of the Pacific presents true stories of heroism as told by such World War II veterans as Sid Phillips, R. V. Burgin, and Chuck Tatum--whose exploits were featured in the HBO(R) miniseries, The Pacific--and their Marine buddies from the legendary 1st Marine Division. Includes rare photos

Download or read book In the Arena written by Chuck Robb and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2021-04-20 with total page 501 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In December 1967, Chuck Robb was catapulted onto the national scene when he married Lynda Bird Johnson, the daughter of President Lyndon B. Johnson, in a nationally broadcast White House wedding. Shortly thereafter, Robb, a U.S. Marine, deployed to Vietnam, where he commanded India Company of the 3rd Battalion, 7th Regiment, and was awarded the Bronze Star. These two experiences—seemingly polar opposites—illustrate much about the eventual Virginia governor and U.S. senator, who combined a commitment to family with an ingrained sense of civic duty on the national stage. In the Arena offers the first political memoir of the noted statesman’s extraordinary life, tracing his path from early days as an anonymous Marine to his fairytale wedding, from night movements in Vietnam to engaging in the height of Democratic politics in the Virginia state capitol and U.S. Senate, and from experiencing personal highs and lows to becoming a principled fighter and exemplar of today’s moderate Democrat. Despite representing a conservative state, he stood up for a woman’s right to choose, the Equal Rights Amendment, the constitutionality of flag burning, gay rights, and gun control. As governor, Robb raised the education budget by over $1 billion and appointed a record number of women and minorities to state positions, including the first African American to the Virginia Supreme Court. In 1996, in his second term in the Senate, he was the only southern senator to vote against the Defense of Marriage Act, the legislation banning gay marriage, calling the movement to end this discrimination a "fight for civil and human rights." Progressive on social issues, he was fiscally conservative and pro–national security, going on to co-chair the 2004 WMD Commission under George W. Bush. Looking back from our deeply partisan era, Robb’s independent approach now seems remarkable, as well as instructive. Full of honest reflections, In the Arena pulls back the curtain on one of America's proven political leaders and reveals the surprisingly colorful story of his career, marriage, and life.