Download or read book Bristol s Bastards written by Nicholas P. Maurstad and published by Quarto Publishing Group USA. This book was released on 2008-11-15 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Minnesota’s toughest farm boys take on Iraqi insurgents in one of the most irreverent and outrageous memoirs to come out of the Iraq War. When they deployed for Iraq, Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 136th Infantry Regiment of the Minnesota National Guard, was mostly composed of farm kids from the Midwest. But make no mistake—these boys could replace a tank track on the side of the road using nothing but a crescent wrench, Zippo lighter, and a two-by-four. Once they arrived, they fought alongside the Marine Corps in Anbar province through the deadliest period of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Bravo Company earned the nickname “Bristol’s Bastards” after USMC Colonel George Bristol, commanding officer of the IMEF Headquarters Group, adopted this band of fierce warriors as one of his own. Specialist Nick Maurstad, a member of Bristol’s Bastards, brings to life the experience of fighting in Iraq: kicking down doors, dodging IEDs, battling insurgents in the small towns surrounding Fallujah, and trying to help one another survive in the deadliest place on earth.

Download or read book Company of Heroes written by Eric Poole and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-03-20 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are many broad studies of the Vietnam War, but this work offers an insight into the harrowing experiences of just a small number of men from a single unit, deep in the jungles of Vietnam and Cambodia. Its focus is the remarkable account of a Medal of Honor recipient Leslie Sabo Jr., whose brave actions were forgotten for over three decades. Sabo and other replacement soldiers in Bravo Company, 3rd Battalion, 506th Infantry (Currahees), 101st Airborne Division, were involved in intense, bloody engagements such as the battle for Hill 474 and the Mother's Day Ambush. Beginning with their deployment at the height of the blistering Tet Offensive, and using military records and interviews with surviving soldiers, Eric Poole recreates the terror of combat amidst the jungles and rice paddies of Vietnam. Company of Heroes, now published in paperback tells the remarkable story of how Sabo earned his medal, as Bravo Company forged bonds of brotherhood in their daily battle for survival.

Download or read book Generation Kill written by Evan Wright and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2005-02-01 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on Evan Wright's National Magazine Award-winning story in Rolling Stone, this is the raw, firsthand account of the 2003 Iraq invasion that inspired the HBO® original mini-series. Within hours of 9/11, America’s war on terrorism fell to those like the twenty-three Marines of the First Recon Battalion, the first generation dispatched into open-ended combat since Vietnam. They were a new pop-culture breed of American warrior unrecognizable to their forebears—soldiers raised on hip hop, video games and The Real World. Cocky, brave, headstrong, wary and mostly unprepared for the physical, emotional and moral horrors ahead, the “First Suicide Battalion” would spearhead the blitzkrieg on Iraq, and fight against the hardest resistance Saddam had to offer. Hailed as “one of the best books to come out of the Iraq war”(Financial Times), Generation Kill is the funny, frightening, and profane firsthand account of these remarkable men, of the personal toll of victory, and of the randomness, brutality and camaraderie of a new American War.

Download or read book Armor Attacks The Tank Platoon written by John F. Antal and published by Casemate. This book was released on 2020-08-31 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Extremely clever . . . part tactical decision game (TDG), part combat adventure page turner, and part The Defense of Duffer’s Drift.” —Capt. Randall P. Newman, USMC In this unique, interactive story, you are the leader of a U.S. Army M1 Abrams tank platoon. Throughout the text, you’ll have an opportunity to make life-or-death decisions, and the events that unfold will be dictated by the choices you make. As you progress through the book, you’ll learn important tactical and operational lessons. Whether or not you are—or want to be—a tank platoon leader, you’ll find this book both highly entertaining and instructive. There are two operations to survive—an assault and a counter-reconnaissance mission. In each you must bring your knowledge and judgment to bear on the scenario in order to achieve the objective. If you choose wrong, defeat and even death may be your fate. If you succeed, you can savor the taste of victory and live to fight another day. The scenarios are highly realistic, and there are maps and appendices with detailed specifications of the hardware involved to help you make informed decisions. Written before Operation Desert Storm and published in 1991, Armor Attacks may feature military technology that’s dated by today’s standards—but the need for human leadership and effective, rapid decision-making has not changed. Armor Attacks was recognized as an invaluable teaching tool by United States Military Academy, West Point and was used to teach cadets the essential skills of leadership, decision-making, and tactics—a decade of USMA leaders trained with this book. To supplement the original text, this new edition includes the West Point instructor reference guide, which explains and amplifies the teaching points of each scenario encountered.

Download or read book The Magnificent Bastards written by Keith Nolan and published by Presidio Press. This book was released on 2009-10-07 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On April 29, 1968, the North Vietnamese Army is spotted less than four miles from the U.S. Marines’ Dong Ha Combat Base. Intense fighting develops in nearby Dai Do as the 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, known as “the Magnificent Bastards,” struggles to eject NVA forces from this strategic position. Yet the BLT 2/4 Marines defy the brutal onslaught. Pressing forward, America’s finest warriors rout the NVA from their fortress-hamlets–often in deadly hand-to-hand combat. At the end of two weeks of desperate, grinding battles, the Marines and the infantry battalion supporting them are torn to shreds. But against all odds, they beat back their savage adversary. The Magnificent Bastards captures that gripping conflict in all its horror, hell, and heroism. “Superb . . . among the best writing on the Vietnam War . . . Nolan has skillfully woven operational records and oral history into a fascinating narrative that puts the reader in the thick of the action.” –Jon T. Hoffman, author of Chesty “Real and gripping . . . combat with all the warts on.” –Lieutenant General Victor H. Krulak, USMC (Ret.)

Download or read book Alpha Bravo Delta Guide to Decisive 20th century American Battles written by W. Thomas Smith and published by Alpha Books. This book was released on 2003 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This who, what, when, where, why, and how of American military victory and defeat includes: * Every decisive battle waged by the U.S. military over the last century from the Boxer Rebellion of 1900 to Operation Desert Storm * A comprehensive look at each leader and each army * A detailed examination of the full operations and the specfic conflicts * A complete overview of 20th-century American military history * The 100-year evolution of military science and theory

Download or read book A Shau Valor written by Thomas R. Yarborough and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2016-04-05 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of Da Nang Diary: A military history of the Battle of Hamburger Hill and other fights between the NVA and the US and its Vietnamese allies. Throughout the Vietnam War, one focal point persisted where the Viet Cong guerrillas and Army of the Republic of Viet Nam (ARVN) were not a major factor, but where the trained professionals of the North Vietnamese and US armies repeatedly fought head-to-head. A Shau Valor is a thorough study of nine years of American combat operations encompassing the crucial frontier valley and a fifteen-mile radius around it―the most deadly killing ground of the entire war. Beginning in 1963, Special Forces A-teams established camps along the valley floor, followed by a number of top-secret Project Delta reconnaissance missions through 1967. Then, US Army and Marine Corps maneuver battalions engaged in a series of sometimes-controversial thrusts into the A Shau, designed to disrupt NVA infiltrations and to kill enemy soldiers, part of what came to be known as Westmoreland’s “war of attrition.” The various campaigns included Operation Pirous (1967); Operations Delaware and Somerset Plain (1968); and Operations Dewey Canyon, Massachusetts Striker, and Apache Snow (1969)―which included the infamous battle for Hamburger Hill―culminating with Operation Texas Star and the vicious fight for and humiliating evacuation of Fire Support Base Ripcord in the summer of 1970, the last major US battle of the war. By 1971, the fighting had once again shifted to the realm of small Special Forces reconnaissance teams assigned to the ultra-secret Studies and Observations Group (SOG). Other works have focused on individual battles or units, but A Shau Valor is the first to study the campaign―for all its courage and sacrifice―chronologically and within the context of other historical, political, and cultural events.

Download or read book The Latina President written by Joe Rothstein and published by Gold Standard Publications. This book was released on 2016-07-10 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: She's elected President of the United States pledged to lead a popular revolt against the corruption and greed of financial moguls and their lackeys in Congress. A conspiracy of the rich and powerful is determined to stop her before she succeeds. The result: impeachment, murder, assassination. "An unusually deep plot for a political thriller...An enthralling protagonist at the heart of a gripping tale of White House intrigue," says Kirkus Reviews. This thriller skims the surface between fiction and reality, told by an author who spent decades immersed in the tense and turbulent world of high stakes politics. The Latina President is suspenseful, topical, important. And it’s one hell of a good read. As one reviewer says, "If Grisham wrote political thrillers, they'd feel like this!"

Download or read book Bristol s Bastards written by Nicholas P. Maurstad and published by Zenith Press. This book was released on 2008-11-14 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spec. Nicholas Maurstad brings to life the experience of fighting in Iraq with Bravo Company, kicking down doors, dodging IEDs, battling insurgents, and trying to survive.

Download or read book Kontum written by Thomas P. McKenna and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2011-09-09 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the spring of 1972, North Vietnam invaded South Vietnam in what became known as the Easter Offensive. Almost all of the American forces had already withdrawn from Vietnam except for a small group of American advisers to the South Vietnamese armed forces. The 23rd ARVN Infantry Division and its American advisers were sent to defend the provincial capital of Kontum in the Central Highlands. They were surrounded and attacked by three enemy divisions with heavy artillery and tanks but, with the help of air power, managed to successfully defend Kontum and prevent South Vietnam from being cut in half and defeated. Although much has been written about the Vietnam War, little of it addresses either the Easter Offensive or the Battle of Kontum. In Kontum: The Battle to Save South Vietnam, Thomas P. McKenna fills this gap, offering the only in-depth account available of this violent engagement. McKenna, a U.S. infantry lieutenant colonel assigned as a military adviser to the 23rd Division, participated in the battle of Kontum and combines his personal experiences with years of interviews and research from primary sources to describe the events leading up to the invasion and the battle itself. Kontum sheds new light on the actions of U.S. advisers in combat during the Vietnam War. McKenna's book is not only an essential historical resource for America's most controversial war but a personal story of valor and survival.

Download or read book Time in the Barrel written by James P. Coan and published by University Alabama Press. This book was released on 2018-11-13 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Marine’s highly personal memoir reliving the hellish days of a pivotal conflict of the Vietnam War Con Thien, located only two miles from the demilitarized zone dividing North and South Vietnam, was a United States Marine Corps firebase that was the scene of fierce combat for months on end during 1967. Staving off attacks and ambushes while suffering from ineffectual leadership from Washington as well as media onslaughts, courageous American Marines protected this crucial piece of land at all costs. They would hold Con Thien, but many paid the ultimate price. By the end of the war, more than 1,400 Marines had died and more than 9,000 sustained injuries defending the “Hill of Angels.” For eight months, James P. Coan’s five-tank platoon was assigned to Con Thien while attached to various Marine infantry battalions. A novice second lieutenant at the time, the author kept a diary recording the thoughts, fears, and frustrations that accompanied his life on “The Hill.” Time in the Barrel: A Marine’s Account of the Battle for Con Thien offers an authentic firsthand account of the daily nightmare that was Con Thien. An enticing and fascinating read featuring authentic depictions of combat, it allows readers to fully grasp the enormity of the fierce struggle for Con Thien. The defenders of Con Thien were bombarded with hundreds of rounds of incoming rockets, mortars, and artillery that pounded the beleaguered outpost daily. Monsoon downpours turned the red laterite clay soil into a morass of oozing mud, flooded bunkers and trenches, and made Con Thien a living hell. .Being at Con Thien came to be ruefully referred to by the Marines stationed there as "time in the barrel” because they were targets as easy as fish in a barrel. More than a retelling of military movements, Coan’s engrossing narratives focus on the sheer sacrifice and misery of one Marine’s experience in Vietnam. Through his eyes, we experience the abysmal conditions the Marines endured, from monsoon rainstorms to the constant threat of impending attack. Climatic moments in history are captured through the rare, personal perspective of one particularly astute and observant participant.

Download or read book The Battle of Monte Cassino written by Melchior Wankowicz and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2024-08-15 with total page 705 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Melchior Wańkowicz’s The Battle of Monte Cassino is a unique contribution to the history of World War II, indeed the history of war in general. Composed by the Polish master of reportage, this book provides the reader with an exhaustive history of one of the greatest triumphs of Polish arms: the conquest of the German redoubt of Monte Cassino, after months of intense fighting, which provided the Allies with an open road for their progress through the Italian peninsula and, finally, to victory over the Nazis in Europe. The history of the Battle of Monte Cassino (17 January — 19 May 1944), centered on the Benedictine cloister of the same name, which was a key sector of the Nazi Army’s ‘Gustav Line’ of defense. Besides the history of the long Allied siege and the eventual victory won through the efforts of General Anders’ II Polish Corps, Wańkowicz provides an on-the-spot account of the battle, at which he was present, setting the reader in the very midst of operations by his thorough and lively interviews with the soldiers who took part in it.

Download or read book The Grey Bastards written by Jonathan French and published by Crown. This book was released on 2019-03-19 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “[A] fantasy masterwork . . . a dirty, blood-soaked gem of a novel [that reads] like Mad Max set in Tolkien’s Middle-earth.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Jackal and his fellow half-orcs patrol the barren wastes of the Lot Lands, spilling their own damned blood to keep civilized folk safe. A rabble of hard-talking, hog-riding, whore-mongering brawlers they may be, but the Grey Bastards are Jackal’s sworn brothers, fighting at his side in a land where there’s no room for softness. And once Jackal’s in charge—as soon as he can unseat the Bastards’ tyrannical, seemingly unkillable founder—there’s a few things they’ll do different. Better. Or at least, that’s the plan. Until the fallout from a deadly showdown makes Jackal start investigating the Lot Lands for himself. Soon, he’s wondering if his feelings have blinded him to ugly truths about this world, and the Bastards’ place in it. In a quest for answers that takes him from decaying dungeons to the frontlines of an ancient feud, Jackal finds himself battling invading orcs, rampaging centaurs, and grubby human conspiracies alike—along with a host of dark magics so terrifying they’d give even the heartiest Bastard pause. Finally, Jackal must ride to confront a threat that’s lain in wait for generations, even as he wonders whether the Bastards can—or should--survive. Delivered with a generous wink to Sons of Anarchy, featuring sneaky-smart worldbuilding and gobs of fearsomely foul-mouthed charm, The Grey Bastards is a grimy, pulpy, masterpiece—and a raunchy, swaggering, cunningly clever adventure that’s like nothing you’ve read before. Praise for The Grey Bastards “Saddle up the war boar and set off on a wild, gory thrill-ride that ends in an awesome climax and begs for a sequel.”—Daily Mail (UK) “Non-stop action, though not for faint hearts . . . the Grey Bastards live up to their name in all respects.”—The Wall Street Journal

Download or read book The Odyssey of Echo Company written by Doug Stanton and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-09-19 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: SELECTED BY MILITARY TIMES AS A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR * SELECTED BY THE SOCIETY OF MIDLAND AUTHORS’ AS THE BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR The New York Times bestselling author of In Harm’s Way and Horse Soldiers shares the powerful account of an American army platoon fighting for survival during the Vietnam War in “an important book….not just a battle story—it’s also about the home front” (The Today show). On January 31, 1968, as many as 100,000 guerilla fighters and soldiers in the North Vietnamese Army attacked thirty-six cities throughout South Vietnam, hoping to dislodge American forces during one of the vital turning points of the Vietnam War. Alongside other young American soldiers in an Army reconnaissance platoon (Echo Company, 1/501) of the 101st Airborne Division, Stanley Parker, the nineteen-year-old son of a Texan ironworker, was suddenly thrust into savage combat, having been in-country only a few weeks. As Stan and his platoon-mates, many of whom had enlisted in the Army, eager to become paratroopers, moved from hot zone to hot zone, the extreme physical and mental stresses of Echo Company’s day-to-day existence, involving ambushes and attacks, grueling machine-gun battles, and impossibly dangerous rescues of wounded comrades, pushed them all to their limits and forged them into a lifelong brotherhood. The war became their fight for survival. When they came home, some encountered a bitterly divided country that didn’t understand what they had survived. Returning to the small farms, beach towns, and big cities where they grew up, many of the men in the platoon fell silent, knowing that few of their countrymen wanted to hear the stories they lived to tell—until now. Based on interviews, personal letters, and Army after-action reports, The Odyssey of Echo Company recounts the searing tale of wartime service and homecoming of ordinary young American men in an extraordinary time and confirms Doug Stanton’s prominence as an unparalleled storyteller of our age.

Download or read book Don t Tell America written by Michael R. Conroy and published by Eagle Publishing (CA). This book was released on 1992 with total page 522 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Battle of Long Tan written by Harry Smith and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-06-05 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On the afternoon of 18 August 1966, just five kilometres from the main Australian Task Force base at Nui Dat, a group of Viet Cong soldiers walked into the right flank of Delta Company, 6 RAR. Under a blanket of mist and heavy monsoon rain, amid the mud and shattered rubber trees, a dispersed Company of 108 men held its ground with courage and grim determination against a three-sided attack from a force of 2,500 Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army troops. When the battle subsided, 18 Australian soldiers lay dead and 24 had been wounded. Battlefield clearance revealed 245 enemy bodies with captured documents later confirming the count at over 500 enemy killed and 800 wounded. These men were led by a gruff and gusty perfectionist, Major Harry Smith. Now, some 53 years after the battle, Harry tells his story. The Battle of Long Tan is more than just an account of a historic battle. Harry Smith takes his readers on an extraordinary journey — one that ultimately reveals a remarkable cover-up at the highest military and political echelons. The Battle of Long Tan is also Harry’s life story and portrays his many personal battles, from failed marriages to commando-style killing; from a horrific parachute accident through to his modern-day struggles with bureaucracy for recognition for his soldiers. Harry’s battles are tempered by his love of sailing, where he has at last found some peace. The Battle of Long Tan portrays the wrenching, visceral experience of a man who has fought lifelong battles, in a story that he is only now able to tell. Harry can still hear the gunfire and smell the blood spilt at Long Tan. For him, the fight continues.

Download or read book The King s Gold written by Arturo Pérez-Reverte and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2008-08-14 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From international bestselling author Arturo Pérez-Reverte comes the fourth adventure of Captain Alatriste in the “series [that] recalls the great adventure novels of Dumas and Scott”(The New York Times). Seville, 1626. After serving with honor at the bloody siege of Breda, Captain Alatriste and his protégé, Iñigo Balboa, accept a risky job involving a dozen swordsmen and mercenaries at their command, a dazzling amount of contraband gold, and a heavily guarded Spanish galleon returning from the West Indies. The job offer comes from the king himself, for at stake is nothing less than the Spanish Crown, and its dominion over the wealth of the Americas. But for Alatriste, a very personal surprise awaits him on that galleon.