Download or read book Soldier The Autobiography written by General Sir Mike Jackson and published by Random House. This book was released on 2012-12-31 with total page 531 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: General Sir Mike Jackson's illustrious career in the British Army has spanned almost 45 years and all that time he has shown loyalty, courage and commitment to the British army whilst also being an undeniable media attraction. A man of substance where foreign policy is concerned, he has served in theatres from the Artic to the jungle but is perhaps best known for his role in charge of the British troops to end ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, for assembling the British ground component of the coalition that toppled the Taliban, for equipping and organising the army we dispatched to defeat in Iraq and for re-organising the British army with aplomb. His drive, enthusiasm and dominating personality were always popular with his soldiers and drove him right to the top of his profession. He may have been a general but he never stopped caring about the men and women in his charge, despite the politics. Soldier: The Autobiography exhibits all the qualities for which Jackson is admired; his professionalism, his honesty, his directness, his exuberance and his sense of humour. Most of all it gives a vivid sense of what modern soldiering entails.
Download or read book A Soldier of the Reich written by Gunter Beetz and published by Fonthill Media. This book was released on 2019-06-26 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gunter Horst Beetz was born in Berlin in 1926. Growing up as part of a typical family-his father was a banker, his mother a housewife-he joined the Hitler Youth-somewhat against his wishes-and after a short period manning anti-aircraft guns in Berlin he ultimately found himself in Normandy, fighting the Allies, where he was captured in July 1944. A Soldier of the Reich: An Autobiography documents one man's life in Nazi Germany. It examines what it was like to grow up alongside the rise of fascism, exploring the consequences it had on Beetz's life, including what this meant for his relationship with his Jewish girlfriend, Ruth. Beetz also relates his time as an unenthusiastic soldier fighting in Normandy, commenting on the ethics of war, his first sexual encounter with a French prostitute, and life in the sapper battalion with his and his comrades' bungling attempts at front-line soldiery. He was captured in July 1944 and then describes in illuminating detail the life of an ordinary prisoner of war in America. After two years in Pennsylvania he was transferred first for a short period in Belgium, and then to a PoW camp in Ely, England where remained until 1948. Including previously unpublished images from the author's personal collection, this first-hand account explores a perspective rarely acknowledged in discussions of the Second World War: that of an ordinary Wehrmacht soldier, detailing the beliefs and motivations that shaped him as a person.
Download or read book Becton written by Julius Wesley Becton and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2008-02-15 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This autobiography, published in cooperation with the Association of the United States Army (AUSA), highlights Lieutenant General Becton's remarkable career, reflects on his youth, his almost forty years of service in the U.S. Army, and his subsequent civilian appointments. Devotion to leadership, education, service, race, and his spiritual upbringing are all central themes in the book. Becton enlisted in a segregated Army at age eighteen and rose to the rank of lieutenant general over the course of nearly four decades. After receiving his commission as a second lieutenant of infantry, he subsequently fought with distinction in the Korean War. Integrated into the Regular Army in 1951, he went on to earn degrees in mathematics and economics and held combat commands in the 101st Airborne Division in Vietnam and the legendary 1st Cavalry Division in 1975–76. Promoted to lieutenant general in 1978, he served as commanding general of the U.S. VII Corps in Germany and deputy commander of Training and Doctrine Command and the Army Inspector of Training before retiring in 1983. Following retirement, he entered fields of international disaster assistance, emergency management, and education. In 2007 Becton was selected to receive the George Catlett Marshall Medal, the highest award presented by the AUSA for being a "soldier, combat commander, administrator, educator, public servant, government leader, and role model.”
Download or read book A Woman Soldier s Own Story written by Bingying Xie and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Xie struggled against the constraints of Chinese society in the early twentieth century and went on to become a soldier, a writer and a feminist.
Download or read book A Soldier s General An Autobiography written by General (Retd.) J. J. Singh and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2012-11-21 with total page 461 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this engrossing book, General Singh gives us insights into how decisions about the nation's security are taken at the highest levels of government, whether it is Siachen, the conduct of war (Kargil) or the massing of troops on the border (Operation Parakaram). General Singh also addresses some controversial issues, including the irresponsible 'communal spin' given to a case linked to the 'age issue' of the last army chief, which had the potential to rupture the secular and apolitical fabric of the armed forces. Bringing alive the charm and adventure of an army life lived to the full, General Singh also gives us astute analysis of many critical issues: the challenges from Pakistan and China, the threats of terrorism, insurgency and Naxalism, the importance of military diplomacy, and the way forward for the armed forces in a rapidly changing world.
Download or read book A Soldier s Way written by Colin Powell and published by Hutchinson. This book was released on 1996-04 with total page 643 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book No Mean Soldier written by Peter McAleese and published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. This book was released on 2001-02 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Absolutely incredible, and brutally honest, this amazing story recounts the adventures of a British SAS soldier turned mercenary. McAleese fought in some of the world's most dangerous places, from Aden to Rhodesia (against the guerrillas of Zanla), and he nearly lost his life trying to assassinate Colombian drug baron Pablo Escobar. Always in search of the "intense high" of battle, for 25 years he saw almost constant combat...putting him in a unique position to reveal the harsh realities of modern warfare.
Download or read book Secret Soldier written by Muki Betser and published by . This book was released on 1998-09 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book An Unorthodox Soldier written by Tim Spicer and published by Mainstream Publishing Company. This book was released on 2000 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this fast-moving account of his life, Tim Spicer describes the events in Papua New Guinea when he was captured at gun-point and held in captivity--and came away with his life, his men, and the company's honor intact. Here too is the full truth about the notorious "Arms for Africa" affair which tied the Foreign Office in a knot over whether Sandline had broken a UN embargo on supplying arms to the legitimate government-in-exile of Sierra Leone. Spicer's entertaining account of modern soldiering in peace and war looks at the creation of private military companies--the modern, legitimate version of the old mercenaries--and concludes with his troubling forecast for the dangerous world that lies ahead in the new millennium, making this an essential guide to life as it is lived in some of the world's trouble spots, as well as a glimpse of the intrigue that lies behind the British political scene.
Download or read book A Soldier on the Southern Front written by Emilio Lussu and published by Rizzoli Publications. This book was released on 2014-02-25 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A rediscovered World War I masterpiece—one of the few memoirs about the Italian front—for fans of military history and All Quiet on the Western Front An infantryman’s “harrowing, moving, [and] occasionally comic” account of trench warfare on the alpine front seen in A Farewell to Arms (Times Literary Supplement). Taking its place alongside works by Ernst JŸnger, Robert Graves, and Erich Maria Remarque, Emilio Lussu’s memoir as an infantryman is one of the most affecting accounts to come out of the First World War. A classic in Italy but virtually unknown in the English-speaking world, it reveals in spare and detached prose the almost farcical side of the war as seen by a Sardinian officer fighting the Austrian army on the Asiago plateau in northeastern Italy—the alpine front so poignantly evoked by Ernest Hemingway in A Farewell to Arms. For Lussu, June 1916 to July 1917 was a year of continuous assaults on impregnable trenches, absurd missions concocted by commanders full of patriotic rhetoric and vanity but lacking in tactical skill, and episodes often tragic and sometimes grotesque, where the incompetence of his own side was as dangerous as the attacks waged by the enemy. A rare firsthand account of the Italian front, Lussu’s memoir succeeds in staging a fierce indictment of the futility of war in a dry, often ironic style that sets his tale wholly apart from the Western Front of Remarque and adds an astonishingly modern voice to the literature of the Great War.
Download or read book Something about a Soldier written by Charles Ray Willeford and published by Random House (NY). This book was released on 1986 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Behind Enemy Lines written by Richard Bath and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011-01-11 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With three Military Crosses, three Croix de guerre, a Légion d'honneur and a papal knighthood for his heroics during the Second World War, Sir Tommy Macpherson is the most decorated living soldier of the British Army. Yet for 65 years the Highlander's story has remained untold. Few know how, aged 21, he persuaded 23,000 SS soldiers of the feared Das Reich tank column to surrender, or how Tommy almost single-handedly stopped Tito's Yugoslavia annexing the whole of north-east Italy. Twice captured, he escaped both times, marching through hundreds of miles of German-held territory to get home. Still a schoolboy when war broke out, Tommy quickly matured into a legendary commando, and his remarkable story features a dizzyingly diverse cast of characters, including Winston Churchill, Field Marshal Montgomery and Charles de Gaulle.
Download or read book American Soldier written by Tommy R. Franks and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-03-17 with total page 641 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To America, he was a hero. To his troops, he was a soldier. Now hear his story. Each new era in American history has given rise to a military leader who defines the nation’s proudest traditions—of leadership and honor, of vision and commitment and courage in the face of any challenge. From Washington and U.S. Grant to Dwight D. Eisenhower and Norman Schwarzkopf, these men have captured the nation’s imagination, and entered the small pantheon of
Download or read book A General s Life An Autobiography written by Omar Bradley and published by Plunkett Lake Press. This book was released on 2019-07-29 with total page 793 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this autobiography, Omar N. Bradley (1893-1981) recounts his youth in Missouri, his years at the US Military Academy at West Point (he graduated in 1915 alongside Dwight D. Eisenhower), his assignments on the US-Mexico border and in Montana guarding copper mines during World War I, his tours teaching mathematics at West Point and in 1941, commanding of the US Army Infantry School at Fort Benning, his active duty during World War II in North Africa, Sicily, Normandy and eventually commanding 43 divisions and 1.3 million Americans in Europe, linking up with Soviet forces on the Elbe in April 1945, sealing the defeat of Nazi forces. Bradley provides vivid descriptions of key figures in the liberation of Europe, including Marshall, Eisenhower, Patton, Churchill and Montgomery. Back in Washington, Bradley describes his years heading the Veterans Administration, his tenure as Army Chief of Staff and as first Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff starting in 1949. After being promoted to the rank of General of the Army (five stars) in 1950, Bradley was the senior military commander when the Korean War started; he supported President Truman’s wartime policy of containment and was instrumental in persuading Truman to dismiss General MacArthur in 1951 after MacArthur resisted administration attempts to scale back the war’s strategic objectives. “The narrative deals skillfully with the planning and execution of campaigns that changed history... an unmatched panorama of 40 years of American military history... A great many writers have taken a crack at describing the 1944 Allied landings in Normandy [but] no overall description of that long, bitter battle on the American beaches, Utah and Omaha, is better than the one in this book.” — Drew Middleton,The New York Times “The most unassuming of the WW II military chiefs has (in recompense?) the last, stinging word... a vigorous, accomplished, exceptionally unconstrained narrative... Explosive yet likable.” — Kirkus Reviews “[A] surprisingly candid account from a man long reputed to be mild-mannered, discreet, and uncritical of the figures of his time... General Bradley has given us a very informative autobiography. Especially interesting are the sections on American military participation in the North African and Sicilian campaigns, and Eisenhower’s role there; the Normandy landings and subsequent breakout; the Battle of the Bulge; and President Truman’s removal of General MacArthur from command in Korea... He is very frank in his comments on Eisenhower’s weaknesses as Allied commander in North Africa and Sicily, and of Patton’s ill-advised behavior and remarks during that period and later. He is also harshly critical of Montgomery’s “prima donna”-like behavior and his continual efforts to push Eisenhower into giving him the supreme command of all Allied ground troops... With the loss of General Bradley, there are unlikely to be any more top-rank firsthand accounts of this period in US military history. Bradley’s book, therefore, may have the last word, but he hasn’t abused that privilege. He was too fair a man for that.” — Howard C. Thomas, The Christian Science Monitor “[A] superb book... a remarkably smooth-flowing account of the life of one of this country’s most distinguished military leaders... Bradley’s candid appraisals of his superiors, subordinates and peers, notably Patton, Montgomery, Eisenhower, Simpson and Hodges, make fascinating reading... this is a first-rate addition to the growing number of biographies of prominent World War II military personalities. Besides being eminently enjoyable reading for casual consumption, it is of significant value to the student of military history.” — Lieutenant Colonel William A. de Palo, Jr., Infantry Magazine
Download or read book Happy Odyssey written by Adrian Carton de Wiart and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2007-11-13 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The legendary British Army officer recounts his experiences in the Boer War and both World Wars in this memoir with a foreword by Winston Churchill. Lieutenant General Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart had one of the most extraordinary military careers in the history of the British Army. His gallantry in combat won him a Victoria Cross and a Distinguished Service Order, as well as an eyepatch and an empty sleeve. His autobiography is one of the most remarkable of military memoirs. Carton de Wiart abandoned his law studies at Balliol College, Oxford, in 1899 to serve as a trooper in the South African War. During World War I he served both in British Somaliland and on the Western Front, where he lost his left eye to a bullet at the Battle of Somme. He went on to serve as a liaison officer with Polish forces, narrowly escaping the German blitz at the outbreak of World War II. He was part of the British Military Mission to Yugoslavia, taken prisoner by the Italian Army, and made numerous attempts at escape. He spent the remainder of the war as Churchill’s representative in China. The novelist Evelyn Waugh famously used Carton de Wiart as the model for his character Brigadier Ben Ritchie Hook in the Sword of Honour trilogy. In this thrilling autobiography, the legendary officer tells his own remarkable story.
Download or read book Outside the Wire written by Christine Dumaine Leche and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A riveting collection of thirty-eight narratives by American soldiers serving in Afghanistan, Outside the Wire offers a powerful evocation of everyday life in a war zone. Christine Dumaine Leche--a writing instructor who left her home and family to teach at Bagram Air Base and a forward operating base near the volatile Afghan-Pakistani border--encouraged these deeply personal reflections, which demonstrate the power of writing to battle the most traumatic of experiences. The soldiers whose words fill this book often met for class with Leche under extreme circumstances and in challenging conditions, some having just returned from dangerous combat missions, others having spent the day in firefights, endured hours in the bitter cold of an open guard tower, or suffered a difficult phone conversation with a spouse back home. Some choose to record momentous events from childhood or civilian life--events that motivated them to join the military or that haunt them as adults. Others capture the immediacy of the battlefield and the emotional and psychological explosions that followed. These soldiers write through the senses and from the soul, grappling with the impact of moral complexity, fear, homesickness, boredom, and despair. We each, writes Leche, require witnesses to the narratives of our lives. Outside the Wire creates that opportunity for us as readers to bear witness to the men and women who carry the weight of war for us all.
Download or read book My American Journey written by Colin L. Powell and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2010-12-29 with total page 701 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A great American success story . . . an endearing and well-written book.”—The New York Times Book Review Colin Powell is the embodiment of the American dream. He was born in Harlem to immigrant parents from Jamaica. He knew the rough life of the streets. He overcame a barely average start at school. Then he joined the Army. The rest is history—Vietnam, the Pentagon, Panama, Desert Storm—but a history that until now has been known only on the surface. Here, for the first time, Colin Powell himself tells us how it happened, in a memoir distinguished by a heartfelt love of country and family, warm good humor, and a soldier’s directness. My American Journey is the powerful story of a life well lived and well told. It is also a view from the mountaintop of the political landscape of America. At a time when Americans feel disenchanted with their leaders, General Powell’s passionate views on family, personal responsibility, and, in his own words, “the greatness of America and the opportunities it offers” inspire hope and present a blueprint for the future. An utterly absorbing account, it is history with a vision.
