Crimson Worlds Refugees: The First Trilogy


Jay Allan - 2017
    An endless struggle.Three hundred ships. Trapped. Relentlessly pursued by the genocidal Regent and its vast robot battlefleets.Terrence Compton is one of Earth's greatest admirals, a warrior almost without equal. He and his forces saved Earth from invasion by the cybernetic legions of the First Imperium's insane computer Regent. But now he and his fleet are far from home, lost and cut off, with nowhere to flee but deeper into the darkness of uncharted space.Compton and his fleet must find safety...and ultimately a new home. Their journey will take them deep into the heart of the First Imperium, to the silent, windswept worlds where the ancient race that built the Regent once dwelled...and uncover the lost secrets of its disappearance 500,000 years ago. And find a way to destroy the Regent, to rid the universe of the insane machine once and for all.Includes the full novels Into the Darkness, Shadows of the Gods, and Revenge of the Ancients.Crimson Worlds Refugees Reading OrderInto the Darkness (Book One) - part of this collectionShadows of the Gods (Book Two) - part of this collectionRevenge of the Ancients (Book Three) - part of this collectionWinds of Vengeance (Book Four)Storm of Vengeance (Book Five) - Coming 2017

Leave No Man Behind: The Untold Story of the Rangers’ Unrelenting Search for Marcus Luttrell, the Navy SEAL Lone Survivor in Afghanistan


Tony Brooks - 2021
    . . but just one lone survivorOn June 28th, 2005, a four-man Navy SEAL reconnaissance team under Operation Red Wings was ambushed in northeastern Afghanistan--as depicted in the book and film Lone Survivor. A quick reaction force was dispatched to assist them. Turbine 33, carrying eight Navy SEALs and eight members of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment was struck by a rocket propelled grenade, bringing the dual rotor chinook careening toward the rugged peak of Sawtalo Sar.The result was the deadliest single incident in Afghanistan Special Operations at the time.Commanders, unwilling to let this disaster get any worse, quickly called on the largest element of the secretive Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), the 75th Ranger Regiment. The rescue mission: Operation Red Wings II.Tony Brooks, then a newly minted Army Ranger, tells a first-hand account of the daring recovery of Turbine 33, and the subsequent search for the remaining compromised Navy SEAL reconnaissance team--one of whom was Marcus Luttrell, the lone survivor. The Rangers would need to overcome lack of intel, treacherous terrain, violent weather, and an enemy that was born and raised to fight.Like his fellow Rangers, Tony Brooks lived--and many died--by the axiom, "Leave No Man Behind." His account is the first to tell the story other books and films have left out, one of courage, skill, and perseverance in overcoming overwhelming odds to accomplish a mission to bring every American soldier home.

Patton: Blood, Guts, and Prayer


Michael Keane - 2012
    Patton, Jr. is one of the most famous military figures in U.S. history. Yet, he is better known for his profanity than his prayers. Until now. In his new book Patton: Blood, Guts, and Prayer, author Michael Keane takes readers on a journey through Patton's career in three parts: his military prowess, his inspirational bravery, and his faith. Using Patton's own diaries, speeches, and personal papers, Keane examines the general's actions and personality to shed light on his unique and paradoxical persona. From his miraculous near-death experience to his famous prayer for fair weather, Patton: Blood, Guts, and Prayer recounts the seminal events that contributed to Patton's personal and religious beliefs. Comprehensive and inspiring, Patton: Blood, Guts, and Prayer is an extraordinary look at the public and private life of one of World War II's most storied generals.

Joker One: A Marine Platoon's Story of Courage, Leadership, and Brotherhood


Donovan Campbell - 2009
    In this immediate, thrilling, and inspiring memoir, Campbell recounts a timeless and transcendent tale of brotherhood, courage, and sacrifice.As commander of a forty-man infantry platoon called Joker One, Campbell had just months to train and transform a ragtag group of brand-new Marines into a first-rate cohesive fighting unit, men who would become his family: Sergeant Leza, the house intellectual who read Che Guevara; Sergeant Mariano Noriel, the “Filipino ball of fire” who would become Campbell’s closest confidant and friend; Lance Corporal William Feldmeir, a narcoleptic who fell asleep during battle; and a lieutenant known simply as “the Ox,” whose stubborn aggressiveness would be more curse than blessing. Campbell and his men were assigned to Ramadi, that capital of the Sunni-dominated Anbar province that was an explosion just waiting to happen. And when it did happen–with the chilling cries of “Jihad, Jihad, Jihad!” echoing from minaret to minaret–Campbell and company were there to protect the innocent, battle the insurgents, and pick up the pieces. After seven months of day-to-day, house-to-house combat, nearly half of Campbell’s platoon had been wounded, a casualty rate that went beyond that of any Marine or Army unit since Vietnam. Yet unlike Fallujah, Ramadi never fell to the enemy.Told by the man who led the unit of hard-pressed Marines, Joker One is a gripping tale of a leadership, loyalty, faith, and camaraderie throughout the best and worst of times.

Fighting Through to Kohima: A Memoir of War in India and Burma


Michael Lowry - 2003
    This was exciting enough but only a taste of what was to come. The Japanese advance into Burma threatened India and, along with many thousands of British and Colonial troops, Lowry found himself fighting in the Arakan region, where he earned a further Mention in Despatches. Conditions were appalling and the fighting was bitter by any standards. At one point his Battalion was cut off by the Japs for three weeks but surrender was never an option. Yet even worse was to come as the Battalion was thrown into the thick of the action at Kohima which is rated as the most desperate defensive action for the campaign. In one week 173 members of his Battalion were lost. All this is vividly described in this fascinating and inspiring memoir which will enthrall its readers.

Exocet Falklands: The Untold Story of Special Forces Operations


Ewen Southby-Tailyour - 2014
    In that context alone this book is of international military importance. Using previously unknown material and through interviewing key players who have remained silent for 30 years, Ewen Southby-Tailyour has finally established the truth: that it has taken so long reflects the sensitivities, both military and personal, involved. Interviews with the SAS officer commanding Operation Plum Duff, members of the reconnaissance patrol for Operation Mikado, plus the navigator of the helicopter that flew eight troopers into Tierra del Fuego, has allowed the author to describe the tortuous events that led, instead, to a significant survival story. The RAF [pilots tasked with ' crash-landing' two Hercules onto Rio Grande during Operation Mikado have spoken of the extraordinary procedures they developed: so has the captain of the British submarine involved. The Super Etendard pilots who sank HMS Sheffield and MV Atlantic Conveyor and then 'attacked' HMS Invincible, plus a key member of the Argentine special forces and the brigadier defending Rio Grande, add credence, depth and gravitas to the saga. Exocet Falklands is a ground-breaking work of investigative military history.

Typhoon Pilot


Desmond Scott - 1982
    His story includes conflict in the air over Normandy, Belgium, Holland and Germany, where the Typhoons fought their last actions and where Desmond Scott earned major decorations from Belgium, France and Holland.

With Clough, By Taylor


Peter Thomas Taylor - 2019
    I am the shop window and he is the goods in the back.’ Often outrageous and always compelling, Peter Taylor and Brian Clough’s partnership shook the very foundations of the footballing world. They took two peripheral clubs – Derby County and Nottingham Forest – from the sleepy backwaters of East Midlands football to international renown. The first to pay £1 million for a player and the first to win two European Cups and two League Cups in successive seasons, their journey was a whirlwind of trophies, record-breaking transfers, bust-ups and sackings.In a first-hand account told with immense candour, Taylor reveals the highs and lows of their relationship, and details the events that led to their unprecedented success.Originally published in 1980 and available now for the first time in forty years, With Clough, By Taylor is the definitive account of the partnership that revolutionised English football and the trade of the football manager.

Duty First: West Point and the Making of American Leaders


Ed Ruggero - 2001
    Ed Ruggero, a former West Point cadet and professor, takes an incisive look at how this elite school builds the "leaders of character" who will command the nation's military.Ruggero details the struggles of young men and women who will lead the American soldiers of the future. Writing with deep insight and superb narrative skill, he follows their tumultuous lives: the initial, grueling training, the strict student hierarchy and intense classroom work, and the interaction between the lowly first-year plebes and the upper-class cadets who train them. Duty First also shows the role played by the majors, captains, and sergeants, who oversee everything that happens at this unique institution.By taking a close, critical look at the Academy's standards and traditions, Ruggero examines the changes in West Point's approach to leadership training that have sparked controversy among its alumni. While all West Pointers would agree with one graduate's claim that "steel is forged in fire," many worry that the fire has been allowed to cool too much. Does today's Academy produce leaders with the inner steel to fight and win the nation's wars, or are today's cadets being coddled in the interest of political correctness, retention, and diversity? Above the Hudson River to the hot and humid barracks rooms where the nation's future captains struggle, Ruggero combines objective reporting with the emotional perspective of memoir to take readers on a guided tour through the jarring, overwhelming, inspiring leadership school that is West Point.The stories in Duty First widely reverberate far beyond West Point, because while the specific goals and methods of developing leaders differ, the fundamental values courage, commitment, selfless sacrifice - are the same for all leaders, from the parents of small children to the CEOs of major corporations.

Flashing Saber: Three Years in Vietnam


Matthew Brennan - 1985
    The Blues, as they were called, were perpetually understrength and considered to be acceptable losses in hopeless situations—but their amazingly successful record proved otherwise.A firsthand account of mortal combat with the Ninth Cavalry, Flashing Saber is the remarkable story of the brave men who served in the First Air Cavalry Division's reconnaissance squadron. Included is an account of an air-ground raid that overran a regimental command post and killed more high-ranking enemy officers than any similar engagement of the war. The story begins when a teenager, an Eagle Scout and West Point Prep School student, goes to Vietnam in 1965. Motivated by patriotism and the desire to see combat firsthand, Brennan volunteers for front line duty and spends years as an artillery forward observer and infantryman. Promoted to sergeant and then to lieutenant, Brennan participates in hundreds of assault landings.An expansion and careful reworking of his previous work, Brennan's War, published in 1985, and in the vein of classic memoirs by Johnnie Clark and Frederick Downs, Flashing Saberis a harrowing firsthand account of life and death in war, one filled with breathtaking details about a renowned unit.

LRRP Company Command: The Cav's LRP/Rangers in Vietnam, 1968-1969


Kregg P.J. Jorgenson - 2000
    Jorgenson spent 7 years in the Army; three as an infantryman and four as a journalist. After surviving a number of missions as a LRRP with Hotel Company (Airborne), Jorgenson transferred to Alpha (aka Apache) Troop, where he walked point for its reaction force, the Blues. Jorgenson brings his considerable experience as a soldier and journalist to bear in this absorbing account.

Survivor: Life in the SAS


Mark Wales - 2021
    Over four deployments of intense warfighting, Mark watched the line between right and wrong become blurred. When he left the SAS he was adrift, crippled by guilt.On a mission to rebuild himself, Mark turned his life around. He fought his way into the gates of a US Ivy League business school and into the boardrooms of top-tier international corporations. He spent years navigating failure in a quest to find new meaning in life. With every setback, Mark counterattacked, discovering the tactics and tools needed to become more resilient, and to find happiness, belonging and purpose.Told with gripping suspense, humour and touching warmth, Survivor is Mark's extraordinary life in and out of the SAS, a story of resilience and a testament to the power of transformation.

Our Vietnam Wars


William F. Brown - 2018
    It isn’t another war book. It is a book about people, and it contains the personal stories of 100 Vietnam Veterans who served there. Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines, from the late 1950s to 1975 we served from the Delta to the DMZ, and from Thailand to Yankee Station in the South China Sea. Infantry grunts, truck drivers, medics, helicopter pilots, nurses, clerk typists, jet pilots, mechanics, staff officers, repairmen, artillerymen, B-52 bombardiers, MPs, and doctors, we were black, white, and Hispanic, male and female. We were only in our teens and early twenties, but our stories continue to resonate through the years. January 30 marks the 50th anniversary of the Tet Offensive, the seminal event of a war that dominated my generation and changed lives. Some of the men and women in this book are true war heroes. Most were just trying to survive. If you were there, you understand. If you weren’t, my hope is that through these stories you will. Breaking down the stereotypes, they tell who we were, the jobs we did, our memories of that time and place and how it changed us, and what we did after we came home.Over 58,200 of us paid the ultimate price, but the war didn’t end when the last US helicopter lifted off from the roof of the US Embassy in Saigon. It continues to take its ugly toll on many who did come home. Instead of bands and parades, we got PTSD and Agent Orange, diabetes, ischemic heart disease, neuropathy, leukemia, Hodgkin’s Disease, and prostate cancer, and many more. As they say, “Vietnam: the gift that keeps on giving.”

A Walk in the Park: A Vietnam Comedy


Odon Bacque - 2013
    Bacque Jr. figures his poor eyesight rules him out for the draft, not to mention the fact that he's studying law in college, so the young man doesn't worry too much about the war raging in Vietnam. But when his law school requests he doesn't return, Bacque learns just how wrong he was.Still convinced his eyesight—or rather the lack of it—disqualifies him from a combat position, he learns once again he’s mistaken. Sent through Officer Candidate School, he winds up assigned to the 5th Special Forces…the Green Berets.Once in Vietnam, Bacque prepares for the worst—only to have fate finally cut him some slack. Reassigned from an A team back to a B team, he finds himself removed from the front lines and ordered to perform a task better suited to an accounting major, a course he barely passed in college. Still, it beat trying to survive jungle warfare with a serious vision impairment…A Walk in the Park: A Vietnam Comedy charts Bacque's experiences in Vietnam along with his growing disillusionment with the war's management. Funny without being disrespectful, his story offers a surprisingly comedic look at wartime service.

POINT: WILDERNESS WAR IN VIETNAM AND CAMBODIA - A MEMOIR


Jamie Thompson - 2019
    It’s a memoir of the author’s service as an infantry sergeant, squad leader and point man in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War.