EBookClubs

Read Books & Download eBooks Full Online

EBookClubs

Read Books & Download eBooks Full Online

Book The Golden Band from Tigerland

Download or read book The Golden Band from Tigerland written by Tom Continé and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2016-09-12 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Well over a century has passed since two cadets of the Ole War Skule decided to create a brass band for their university, beginning a tradition that continues to the present day. World renowned for its commitment to excellence, LSU’s Golden Band from Tigerland celebrates the sports endeavors of the school teams, creates pride in school traditions, and entertains millions of fans every year. This beautifully illustrated history of LSU’s beloved marching band moves from its military inspiration through the directorships of Castro Carazo, William F. Swor, and Frank B. Wickes to the first female drum major, Kristie Smith, in 1999. Tom Continé and Faye Phillips highlight the band’s recent triumphs as well, including the Sudler Trophy awarded by the John Philip Sousa Foundation, induction into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame, and traveling abroad to march in Hong Kong’s Chinese New Year celebration and Dublin’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade. The excitement of the Pregame Salute, the triumphant spirit of the halftime show, and the hard work that goes into the performances are all captured here in 150 spectacular photographs. Above all, The Golden Band from Tigerland serves as an enduring tribute to the generations of LSU students whose talent and energy transformed a small brass group into an acclaimed marching band.

Book Every Man A King

    Book Details:
  • Author : Huey P. Long
  • Publisher : Da Capo Press
  • Release : 2008-08-01
  • ISBN : 0786723181
  • Pages : 414 pages

Download or read book Every Man A King written by Huey P. Long and published by Da Capo Press. This book was released on 2008-08-01 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Huey Long (1893-1935) was one of the most extraordinary American politicians, simultaneously cursed as a dictator and applauded as a benefactor of the masses. A product of the poor north Louisiana hills, he was elected governor of Louisiana in 1928, and proceeded to subjugate the powerful state political hierarchy after narrowly defeating an impeachment attempt. The only Southern popular leader who truly delivered on his promises, he increased the miles of paved roads and number of bridges in Louisiana tenfold and established free night schools and state hospitals, meeting the huge costs by taxing corporations and issuing bonds. Soon Long had become the absolute ruler of the state, in the process lifting Louisiana from near feudalism into the modern world almost overnight, and inspiring poor whites of the South to a vision of a better life. As Louisiana Senator and one of Roosevelt's most vociferous critics, "The Kingfish," as he called himself, gained a nationwide following, forcing Roosevelt to turn his New Deal significantly to the left. But before he could progress farther, he was assassinated in Baton Rouge in 1935. Long's ultimate ambition, of course, was the presidency, and it was doubtless with this goal in mind that he wrote this spirited and fascinating account of his life, an autobiography every bit as daring and controversial as was The Kingfish himself.

Book The Manship School

    Book Details:
  • Author : Ronald Garay
  • Publisher : LSU Press
  • Release : 2009-01-15
  • ISBN : 9780807133828
  • Pages : 320 pages

Download or read book The Manship School written by Ronald Garay and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2009-01-15 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In September 2005, just days after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, journalists from the Times-Picayune and WWL-TV asked for and received assistance from LSU's Manship School of Mass Communication. The staff of the Times-Picayune used the School's computer labs to publish an online edition of the paper within hours of their arrival and a print edition just five days after the storm. WWL-TV reporters set up shop in the School's television facility and were on the air a few hours later, telling Katrina's story. What happened at the Manship School during that September week affirmed the ascendancy of this illustrious program. From a single journalism course offered during the 1912--1913 session, the LSU Manship School of Mass Communication has a long, rich tradition of excellence. In The Manship School, Ronald Garay, a longtime faculty member and former associate dean, traces not only the story of the Manship School but its role in the evolution of media education in general. Hugh Mercer Blain, a professor in the English department at LSU in the early 1900s, created the first LSU journalism courses and curriculum with the support of then LSU president Thomas Boyd, making LSU one of the first universities to offer journalism education. Garay describes Blain's efforts to structure a fledgling journalism department and his success in gaining national recognition for what soon would become the LSU School of Journalism and later the Manship School of Mass Communication. Garay chronicles the subsequent building of full-fledged journalism units in liberal arts colleges; the addition of new fields such as broadcasting, advertising, public relations, and political communication; the creation of doctoral programs; and the emergence of serious research on the impact of media on society. Throughout, Garay introduces the students, faculty, directors, and alumni who played important roles in the school's history -- including pioneer political consultant Raymond Strother, former Associated Press head Wes Gallagher, and Reader's Digest chairman and former CEO Thomas Ryder -- and details the evolution of LSU's student media, particularly The Reveille, KLSU-FM, and Tiger-TV. The book also describes the Manship School's emergence as an independent college at LSU and Dean John Maxwell Hamilton's role in re-orienting the School's intellectual and professional mission, raising the School's stature and visibility nationally, and incorporating state-of-the-art technology in classrooms and labs. The Manship School provides a valuable and comprehensive record of one of LSU's most distinguished units.

Book Inside the Eye of the Tiger

Download or read book Inside the Eye of the Tiger written by Jerry Simmons and published by Wagon Publishing. This book was released on 2020-10-15 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Synopsis (JACKET) In the South, Southerners don’t think, they feel; and there’s nothing they feel more passionately about than sports—especially college football. In recent years America’s media-driven, sports-crazed culture has whetted the fan’s appetite and thereby catapulted Division I college athletics into a multibillion-dollar entertainment business that rivals the professional ranks. Today, no place is this trend more evident than at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, home of the LSU Fighting Tiger football team. Louisiana State University is part of the nation’s toughest athletic subdivision—the mighty Southeastern Conference, and as a large public institution, it is a microcosm of major competitive college football and sports across the Deep South, a region where overall athletic success is not only encouraged, but expected. Since 2005, LSU has won nearly 80 percent of its football games, three conference championships, a BCS National Championship (2007) and a College Football Playoff Naional Championship (2019). But LSU has not always been atop the college football world. Why did LSU have six straight losing seasons in football? How did LSU Athletics survive the losing years? Who is responsible? How did LSU rise from the fall? What is it that LSU and other competitive schools have done that has made them so successful in sports so fast? What sets LSU and some of the larger SEC schools apart from other football-playing schools in terms of competitiveness? Answers to these important questions can be found inside the pages of this must-read book. Written for the serious observer, alumni or fan struggling to realize how the system works, or often fails to work, Inside the Eye of the Tiger is an introspective snapshot of what it’s like to coach in a big-time athletic department where campus politics and winning are regularly at odds. Often what you see from the outside looking in to the athletic department is not always a true picture of what actually happens. Inside the Eye of the Tiger is the story of what really went on behind the scenes of the LSU Athletic Department over two tumultuous decades in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. *** Hall of Fame LSU Tennis Coach Jerry Simmons’ memoirs of 26 years of coaching is an engaging and sometimes startling read that will once and for all set the record straight on how business was conducted inside the LSU Athletic Department during its roller coaster ride from 1981 to 1998, and beyond. As told to author Chris Warner by Jerry Simmons in a straightforward, provocative style characteristic of his maverick personality, this is a must-read for anyone hoping to enter the big business of college athletics, whether coaching or administratively; as it is the tell-all sports book that will for the better forever alter the stereotype of the modern, big-time Southern athletic department. This is a politically-correct book. Jerry Simmons A native of West Texas, and a former LSU tennis player, Simmons coached LSU Men’s Tennis for 15 years. A 1964 Palo Duro High School graduate from Amarillo, he was the 1965 Globe News Male Tennis Player of the Year. Simmons played college tennis at LSU for a year and at West Texas State (Now West Texas A&M) University in Canyon, Texas from 1967-69, where he maintained the No. 1 singles position and was the Buffaloes' team captain. A self-proclaimed blend of the lives and philosophies of U.S. Army General George S. Patton, UCLA Coach John Wooden and 6th-century B.C. Chinese General Sun Tzu, before coaching LSU Tennis, he was the Men’s Head Tennis Coach at the University of Southwestern Louisiana in Lafayette for 11 years. At LSU, six years after his hiring, he was named National Tennis Coach of the Year, in 1988. Having won over 70 percent of his college matches (492–197 .714), he remains the youngest coach inducted into the United States Collegiate Tennis Hall of Fame (1998) at 52. He is a member of the West Texas State (West Texas A&M) Hall of Fame (2017) and the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame (2018). At LSU he had 13 NCAA Tournament appearances, going 278-105 in that span. Simmons reached the prestigious Elite Eight in the NCAA Tourney five times and won the SEC in 1985, while earning SEC Coach of the Year honors in 1988 and 1997. Simmons coached 37 All-SEC honorees, 24 All-Americans, 19 Academic All-Americans, one NCAA singles champion (1989) and notched a 128-42 record in NCAA play. Chris Warner is the author of over 20 books, including “A Tailgater’s Guide to SEC Football Vol. V,” the Bible of SEC Football, “The Wagon to Disaster,” with HealthSouth CFO Aaron Beam, “The Ulysses Long Story,” about Dale Brown getting four-term Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards to pardon a black man from Angola State Penitentiary, “Bushwhacked at the Flora-Bama,” the history of the iconic beachside haunt, with patriarch Joe Gilchrist, as well as six novels, “The Tiger Among Us,” a fictional story on international terrorism with Recon Marine/Air Force Pararescue Daniel Waghelstein, set at LSU in 1990, “Professional Bone,” a novel based on the HealthSouth scandal, a campy series: “Saved at the Alabama-Florida Line”(Nominated, Best Piece of Fiction by an Alabama author, Alabama Library Association 2017), “They Met at the Alabama-Florida Line,” “Trouble at the Alabama-Florida Line,” and a novella, “Santa & Sam,“ among other titles. He has completed but not published, “The Principal of Influence,” the story of Richard Scott Rogers, a British con man and vicious pedophile hiding in plain sight as a Baton Rouge scion and talk show host for over a dozen years, whose demise in the viper pit of Louisiana politics was the Media Story of the Year in Louisiana in 2014. Chris holds a doctorate from the University of New Orleans and is a double graduate of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. A New Iberia, Louisiana native, he lives in Perdido Key, Florida.

Book Tales from the LSU Tigers Sideline

Download or read book Tales from the LSU Tigers Sideline written by Lee Feinswog and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-10-01 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: LSU football, a program steeped in tradition, where the fan really does come from the word “fanatic,” has a rich history, including 11 SEC championships and three national championships, the most recent of which came in 2003 and 2007. Award-winning sportswriter and Baton Rouge television personality Lee Feinswog captures the Louisiana flavor of why they say, “There’s nothing like Saturday night in Tiger Stadium,” with a book filled with stories and anecdotes about football on the Bayou. Feinswog includes tales of legendary coaches Cholly Mac (Charles McClendon), Paul Dietzel, and Nick Saban. Catch up with on-campus mascot Mike the Tiger, a real live Bengal tiger, and relive Gerry DiNardo’s best moments as head coach through these pages. Tales from the LSU Tigers Sidelines offers a unique look at the game they play in one of the largest on-campus stadiums in the country. From the spiciest tailgating to the loudest fans, LSU football is a culture unto itself, and this book is the perfect addition to any LSU fan’s bookshelf.

Book Big Time

    Book Details:
  • Author : Chris Warner
  • Publisher : Wagon Publishing
  • Release : 2023-04-10
  • ISBN :
  • Pages : 108 pages

Download or read book Big Time written by Chris Warner and published by Wagon Publishing. This book was released on 2023-04-10 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Big Time” A novel set at Louisiana State University in the Fall of 1988 By Chris Warner Louis Stansbury Underwood has never felt more alive. He is on the precipice of realizing his boyhood dream of attending the Ole War Skule in Baton Rouge, the Bayou State’s flagship, Louisiana State University, like his father and maternal grandfather before him. On a full academic scholarship, he’s spent the summer after his high school graduation as a ten-hour a day roughneck on a remote oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, giving him the money and moxie he needs to pledge a fraternity, move into a dorm and begin anew; living life as a young adult with a promising future for the first time, forever free from what he considers his shrinking home town’s many shortcomings, restrictions and peculiar confines. For lucky Louis, and his extended, simple, loving Cajun family and friends, he’s going “big time”—to LSU (pronounced Ellishoe); and there’s no looking back—except maybe for that special someone he’s leaving behind. The sky is the limit for Louis. His academic pedigree, rugged athleticism and boyish smile make him sought after among Greek circles, as the fraternities want him as much as the coquettish sorority girls want a handsome date to the first home football game. After much consideration, Louis pledges a fraternity, enrolls in classes, and meets the gorgeous college girls of his fanciful dreams. He is consumed by classes and the many socials and exchanges, mixing on and off campus with interesting people; like his potluck dorm roommate, too an ardent scholarship freshman, from New Orleans, also pledging one of the smaller fraternities on campus—a black one—and despite their subtle differences, they form a fast friendship and a bond that will change everything. The Kappa Alpha Order on campus, along with the Kappa Sigma Fraternity, two Old Row stalwarts, annually hold the Charity Bowl Fundraiser, a football game played under the lights, with paid referees, pitting the two fraternity squads against one another—pads, helmets, cleats, onlookers, refreshments and cheerleaders included. For each of the young, equipped and uniformed men and eager spectators it is an opportunity to relive their recent past, and again play and enjoy the game they practiced and embraced with the usual zeal and vigor during their high school days; it is a singular chance to again excel at a tough, physical game; to assert one’s dominance and impress the ladies, as everyone loves a winner. Understanding this, Louis and his newfound friend offer their fraternity officers a winning proposal. Louis and his roommate see opportunity in a challenge—their upstart fraternities will join unlikely forces and take on a super team comprising the collective best players of the two regular foes, Kappa Alpha and Kappa Sigma, creating much more campus and local media interest and potentially a much bigger symbolic take for the winners. Keen interest in the novel contest spurs a hard sellout at a bigger venue, everyone begging the obvious question: “Can an all-white team take on and defeat a team with black players?” Big Time is a raucous, romantic, retro tale seeking to draw semblance to Southern living, failed politics and pop culture from the not-so-distant past; now a faded, unframed memory.

Book The Kappa Alpha Journal

Download or read book The Kappa Alpha Journal written by Kappa Alpha Order and published by . This book was released on 1919 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Parnassus on the Mississippi

Download or read book Parnassus on the Mississippi written by Thomas W. Cutrer and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 1984-06-01 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Parnassus on the Mississippi is a history of the short-lived yet remarkable productive epoch when, in the words of C. Vann Woodward, “the center of the avant-garde of American literary criticism shifted temporarily to the banks of the Mississippi at Baton Rouge.” Beginning with the establishment of the Southern Review at Louisiana State University in 1935, Baton Rouge became the home not only to a brand of criticism that would reshape the teaching of literature in America but also to a community of scholars and artists that included Cleanth Brooks, Robert Penn Warren, Katherine Anne Porter, Robert Lowell, Jean Stafford, and Peter Taylor. Thomas Cutrer chronicles how the Southern Review, created in the midst of the Depression by the largess of Louisiana governor Huey P. Long, quickly rose to the position of the finest American literary journal of its day. Under the joint editorship of Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren, the journal published criticism, poetry, and short fiction by writers as eminent as R.P. Blackmur, Kenneth Burke, T.S. Elliot, and Wallace Stevens. The editors also encouraged and published works by such young talented, and at the time unknown writers as Nelson Algren, Randall Jarrell, Mary McCarthy, and Eudora Welty. During these same years, Brooks and Warren collaborated on three textbooks—An Approach to Literature, Understanding Poetry, and Understanding Fiction—which would revolutionize college English by emphasizing the study of a literary work itself, in concrete and precise terms, over the study of the biographical, historical, and moral issues surrounding it. Brooks also wrote his influential critical works Modern Poetry and Tradition and The Well Wrought Urn, while Warren wrote two novels and some of his finest poems and stories, and absorbed material from the political tumult around him for the work that would later become All the King’s Men. The stature of the Southern Review and the vitality of the literary community that it spawned were both, to a great extent, born of the dedication and creativity of Books and Warren, but in other very tangible ways, they were also by-products of the ambition of Huey Long; ironically, it was the actions of one of the assassinated governor’s loyalists that brought an end to Baton Rouge’s time as a Parnassus. After a financial scandal rocked the university, a reform administration was appointed which, in its zeal to curb a runaway budget, stopped the funding for the review. Soon after, Brooks and Warren both left the faculty. The Southern Review itself would lie dormant until its revival two decades later.

Book Billy Cannon

Download or read book Billy Cannon written by Charles N. deGravelles and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2015-09-07 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Through conversations with Cannon, deGravelles follows the athlete-turned-reformer from his boyhood in a working-class Baton Rouge neighborhood to his sudden rush of fame as the leading high school running back in the country. Personal and previously unpublished stories about Cannon's glory days at LSU and his stellar but controversial career in the pros, as well as details of his indictment for counterfeiting and his post-release work as staff dentist at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, [are provided]"--Dust jacket flap.

Book They Met at the Alabama Florida Line

Download or read book They Met at the Alabama Florida Line written by Chris Warner and published by Wagon Publishing. This book was released on 2020-05-15 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What do four LSU fraternity brothers, three Auburn sorority sisters and a Birmingham volunteer church group have in common? They’re on a road trip to the iconic Flora-Bama Lounge & Package to first experience the world-famous Interstate Mullet Toss! Unbeknownst to them, they’re on an unprecedented collision course for fun, sun and subtle fame—meaning their lives will certainly never be the same. The Flora-Bama’s new owners, against the wishes of their minority partner, have cut a lucrative Hollywood deal to produce a “no-holds-barred…anything goes” documentary on the zany, voyeuristic beach party known for string bikinis, cold beer, frothy bushwhackers and of course, thrown fish. The filmmakers have coughed up major dough, and have been given full reign of the quintessential beach bar and its patrons for the duration of the risqué four-day event. What they witness and capture on film is wilder than anything Tinsel Town could have scripted. In their quest for a memorable time the college kids find unforgettable adventure. Amazingly, all the frat guys hook up with people who look better than them. The unfortunate fact for one is that unbeknownst to him, his significant other—a gorgeous church volunteer and preacher’s daughter—is underage—by almost two years. After a raucous night, an arrest lands the two in the local hoosegow, where that latter, salient fact is painstakingly revealed, warranting a more serious charge. The desperate kids seek and find help in the iconic bar’s founder, Joe, who uses local resources to try and ease them out of the jam they precariously find themselves. However, the gig is complicated by the fact that Hollywood producers have trained their cameras on the developing story, spooking the entrenched power players within the good ole’ boy network who will determine what level and brand of Southern-style justice is ultimately served—if at all. The loveable bar owner, Joe, and his inner circle of unique characters, musicians and connected island dwellers are challenged like never before to save not only the reputations and records of the kids he has befriended—but for posterity, the character of his beloved beach bar and the community it faithfully supports. A fast-paced yarn reminiscent of its predecessor, “They Met at the Alabama-Florida Line,” is the second fictional tome by Chris Warner set at the world-famous Flora-Bama Lounge & Package. It is another romantic, satirical tale seeking to draw semblance to Southern living, art, failed politics and pop culture.

Book Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren

Download or read book Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren written by Cleanth Brooks and published by University of Missouri Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: James A. Grimshaw, Jr., brings together for the first time more than 350 letters exchanged by two scholars who altered the way literature is taught in this country. The selected letters focus on the development of their five major textbooks--the rationale for selections, the details involved in obtaining permissions and preparing indexes, and the demands of meeting deadlines. More important, these letters reveal their attitudes toward literature, teaching, and scholarship. Providing insight into two of the most influential literary minds of this century, these letters show two men who were deeply involved in research and writing, and who were committed to a life of travel, conversation, and learning. Their zest for life and their love of literature explain, in part, their uncanny ability to persevere and to succeed. Yet their human qualities are also present in the letters, which bring Brooks and Warren to life as rare individuals able to sustain a deep, lifelong friendship. Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren will help readers better understand the critical work of Brooks and the creative work of Warren. Students and teachers of American literature will find this book indispensable.

Book Baton Rouge

    Book Details:
  • Author : Sylvia Frank Rodrigue
  • Publisher : Arcadia Publishing
  • Release : 2008-08-11
  • ISBN : 1439619719
  • Pages : 132 pages

Download or read book Baton Rouge written by Sylvia Frank Rodrigue and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2008-08-11 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1699, on a high bluff along the Mississippi River, explorer Pierre Le Moyne, Sieur dIberville, found the fabled Red Stick, a post that marked the line between two Native American nations and gave Baton Rouge, Louisiana, its name. This book chronicles 150 years of the daily activities of Baton Rouges residents through images of the citys growth and development; life during the Civil War, floods, hurricanes, and economic depressions; and people working, playing, and celebrating.

Book Kingfish U

    Book Details:
  • Author : Robert Mann
  • Publisher : LSU Press
  • Release : 2023-06-07
  • ISBN : 0807180017
  • Pages : 339 pages

Download or read book Kingfish U written by Robert Mann and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2023-06-07 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No political leader is more closely identified with Louisiana State University than the flamboyant governor and U.S. senator Huey P. Long, who devoted his last years to turning a small, undistinguished state school into an academic and football powerhouse. From 1931, when Long declared himself the “official thief” for LSU, to his death in 1935, the school’s budget mushroomed, its physical plant burgeoned, its faculty flourished, and its enrollment tripled. Along with improving LSU’s academic reputation, Long believed the school’s football program and band were crucial to its success. Taking an intense interest in the team, Long delivered pregame and halftime pep talks, devised plays, stalked the sidelines during games, and fired two coaches. He poured money into a larger, flashier band, supervised the hiring of two directors, and, with the second one, wrote a new fight song, “Touchdown for LSU.” While he rarely meddled in academic affairs, Long insisted that no faculty member criticize him publicly. When students or faculty from “his school” opposed him, retribution was swift. Long’s support for LSU did not come without consequences. His unrelenting involvement almost cost the university its accreditation. And after his death, several of his allies—including his handpicked university president—went to prison in a scandal that almost destroyed LSU. Rollicking and revealing, Robert Mann’s Kingfish U is the definitive story of Long’s embrace of LSU.

Book Capitol Park and Spanish Town

Download or read book Capitol Park and Spanish Town written by Matt Isch and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2016-10-10 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The land north of downtown Baton Rouge between the Mississippi River and Interstate 10 encompasses the first high ground north of the mouth of the Mississippi. As the oldest neighborhood in the city, Spanish Town is widely considered to be the heart and soul of Baton Rouge. France, England, and Spain disputed the land for over 100 years, and in 1779 the English fought the Spanish and their American allies to secure it. Over the past 200 years, the area has been the home of an Army garrison, the campus of Louisiana State University, and Louisiana's magnificent state capitol building and surrounding Capitol Park. Today, Spanish Town's residents are notably diverse, and the neighborhood claims to host the largest Mardi Gras celebration in Baton Rouge.

Book Matrix

    Book Details:
  • Author :
  • Publisher :
  • Release : 1928
  • ISBN :
  • Pages : 1258 pages

Download or read book Matrix written by and published by . This book was released on 1928 with total page 1258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Tigers of the Tigris

Download or read book Tigers of the Tigris written by Mark Kerry and published by Dog Ear Publishing. This book was released on 2008-12 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tigers of the Tigris: An American Advisor's Journey Through Culture, Religion and Intrigue in Building the Iraqi Armyis a remarkable memoir of a military advisor with a military advisory team referred to as a Military Transition Team (MiTT) in Iraq. It is required reading for those interested in understanding how U.S. forces used military advisory teams to achieve unity of effort to build legitimacy and strengthen security forces. It is also required reading to understand Iraqi cultural and religious aspects and the center of gravity for the war - the concept of winning and changing of hearts and minds in Iraq. The author carries readers behind closed doors to witness negotiations, intrigue and the struggle to win the hearts and minds of local sheikhs and religious leaders. He describes meetings with prominent religious leaders such as Abd El Azziz Al Hakim, the head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and Ayatollah Hussein Al Sadr, a powerful Shi'a cleric in Baghdad. Experience the daunting tasks faced by the MiTT to advise, coach, teach and mentor Iraqi security forces and provide direct access to coalition capabilities such as fire support, medical evacuation, and intelligence gathering. Enjoy the sweet success in getting the first Iraqi Army Brigade to achieve full responsibility for its own battle sector in Iraq. Live through what it is like dealing with sectarian problems between the Sunni Arab majority who had held power for many centuries and the Shi'a Arabs, the nation's long-repressed majority. Understand the role that culture and religion play in Iraqi society and how American soldiers adapted to overcome these problems. Tigers of the Tigrisis an informative read that provides first-hand accounts from military advisors in the field who go about their day-to-day duties of both fighting the insurgents and winning hearts and minds of Iraqis. "There has been a lot written about day to day combat operations, but this book will take you inside the little publicized effort to build an Iraqi force for stabilizing the country. It is a must read if you have someone in Iraq or if you just want to know what it is like for an American soldier in Iraq working side by side with Iraqi soldiers to build a new Army." Stephen E. Henthorne, FRUSI Senior Advisor, Civil-Military Centre of Excellence (CCOE-NATO), Joint-Interagency-Multinational Stability Operations (Joint CA/CIMIC/CMO Interoperability) "An insightful book. Tigers of the Tigrisprovides not only an exciting memoir of an American military advisor, but also a manual for effective counterinsurgency. Through personal stories the author describes the impact of culture and religion and the ever important non-lethal interaction with Iraqi citizens." Huntington Blair (Hunt) Downer, Major General, Louisiana Army National Guard. "Mark Kerry has opened a window into the cultural inner-workings of Iraqi society and its army that illuminate the challenges Iraqis are facing in rebuilding their society as free and democratic. He also illustrates the cultural undercurrents that lead to phenomena that otherwise mystify a Western observer. Kerry's book is a must-read for American officers detailed to advisory positions. I also recommend it as an exemplar of a model of counterinsurgency that demonstrates the considerable gains made from simply visiting religious and tribal opinion leaders, answering their questions and addressing their concerns, and persuading them to support the goals and activities of the counterinsurgent." Dr. Adam Shilling

Book Don s Nam

Download or read book Don s Nam written by Franklin D. Rast and published by Universal-Publishers. This book was released on 1999 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Don's Nam is a vivid first-person account of war in Vietnam centered around the daily activities of the Orient Express, it is a story unlike any other account of the war. Written from a diary, and documented with operational reports, eyewitness accounts, journals, and photos, Rast eloquently and passionately takes the reader on a gut-wrenching roller coaster ride of horror, courage, and sacrifice that the headlines and TV news never saw. It is essential, poignant reading for those veterans who were in `Nam and cannot forget, and also for those who were not there, but strive to understand the electrifying intensity of what war is about. Ride the primitive roads on dangerous convoys with the men of the Orient Express, and get a true feeling what it was like to be ambushed or mined in 1969 and 1970. Experience "Rat Patrols," rocket attacks, reconnaissance missions, and the political intrigue that made the war so difficult to fight using conventional methods. The men's stories, taken down in his muddy diary, and kept locked in an old army footlocker for twenty-eight years, jump to life off the pages and leave the reader crying, laughing, or just plainly boiling with rage as this dramatic account of the Vietnam war unfolds in a story that is truly spellbinding. Professor Gilda M. Agacer Monmouth University Editor