The Degüello


SAZ - 2011
    just days after the horrific events of 9/11, a handful of Green Berets from the decorated 5th Special Forces Group were secretly inserted deep behind enemy lines in Northern Afghanistan to set the stage for the upcoming War on Terror. Their mission was to seek out and kill as many Taliban and Al Qaida forces as they could find. Read as the now infamous 'Triple Nickel' is alerted and put into isolation to prepare for their mission. Follow them as they are inserted into the Panjshir Valley north of Kabul and link up with the CIA and the rebel forces of the Northern Alliance to begin attacks against enemy positions. Go inside the legend of one of Americas most elite units in this exciting and sometimes humorous account of their avenging the most horrific terrorist attack we have ever experienced. Nothing we know of the War in Afghanistan would be possible had it not been for what these men did, and they did it all with no way out, no rules, and no mercy.

Brothers Forever: The Enduring Bond between a Marine and a Navy SEAL that Transcended Their Ultimate Sacrifice


Tom Sileo - 2014
    In his Memorial Day address, he extolled the courage and sacrifice of the two young men buried side by side in the graves before him: Travis Manion, a fallen US Marine, and Brendan Looney, a fallen US Navy SEAL. Although they were killed three years apart, one in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, these two best friends and former roommates were now buried together—“brothers forever.”Award-winning journalist Tom Sileo and Travis’s father, former Marine colonel Tom Manion, tell the intimate and personal story of how these Naval Academy roommates defined a generation’s sacrifice after 9/11, and how Travis and Brendan’s loved ones overcame heartbreak to carry on in their memory. From Travis’s incredible heroism on the streets of Fallujah to Brendan’s anguished Navy SEAL training in the wake of his friend’s death and his own heroism in the mountains of Afghanistan, Brothers Forever is a remarkable story of friendship, family, and war.

The Elite: The Story of Special Forces – From Ancient Sparta to the War on Terror


Ranulph Fiennes - 2019
    The best of the best, these elite units have frequently been immortalised on the big screen, and in computer games, for their daring deeds. Whether it be fighting on the battlefield, storming forts and castles, rescuing hostages, high stakes reconnaissance missions or the dramatic assassination of enemy leaders, these are the men who are relied upon to undertake dangerous missions of the highest stakes. While celebrating the heroics of groups such as the SAS and Navy Seals, Sir Ranulph also reveals the true stories of infamous organisations such as The Assassins and Templar Knights. Uncovering their origins, and examining their weapons and tactics, Sir Ranulph showcases these units most famous missions, and reveals the men behind them. Showing incredible courage, often in the face of impossible odds, these units have also changed the course of history along the way. Sir Ranulph discusses the reasons behind their success and failures, with many notorious conflicts often being decided by these elite units facing off against each other, with the victor not only evolving warfare, but also consigning their opponent to history. While these units traditionally prefer to operate in the shadows, Sir Ranulph brings their remarkable histories to the fore, told with his trademark ability to weave a story which has seen him become one of Britain’s most beloved bestselling authors.

Triple Sticks: Tales of a Few Young Men in the 1960s


Bernie Fipp - 2010
    The author assures us it is not!Three years before they came together, four young American men left their fraternities and college campuses for an adventure exceeding their imaginations. Wanting something more than the draft and unknown to each other, they chose Naval Aviation as the next step in their lives. Generally, they were better than their navy peers, all qualifying for high performance aircraft to be flown from steel decks over foreign seas. They would become the pointy end of the stick in aerial battles over North Vietnam, the most heavily defended patch of real estate in the history of aerial warfare. They were to do this in 1967, the year in which Naval Aviation experienced its greatest losses.These four young men, now Lieutenants Junior Grade, United States Navy, were ordered to Attack Squadron 34 to fly A4 Skyhawks into combat. They were assigned Junior Officer's stateroom 0111 aboard USS Intrepid, a venerable aircraft carrier with a distinguished history. This "bunkroom" better known to them as Triple Sticks was the repository for a log (in navy terms) or journal written by these four young aviators. Forty years later this log was the genesis of this memoir.In the lethal environment over the northern reaches of North Vietnam or ashore in the Officer's clubs and bars of Asia, the writing brings to life wonderful humor, bizarre behavior, vivid aerial battles, uncommon loyalty, anger, frustration and respect. One survived or did not according to his skill and luck.

The Reaper: Autobiography of One of the Deadliest Special Ops Snipers


Nicholas Irving - 2015
    His teammates and chain of command labeled him "The Reaper,” and his actions on the battlefield became the stuff of legend, culminating in an extraordinary face-off against an enemy sniper known simply as The Chechnian.Irving’s astonishing first-person account of his development into an expert assassin offers a fascinating and extremely rare view of special operations combat missions through the eyes of a Ranger sniper during the Global War on Terrorism. From the brotherhood and sacrifice of teammates in battle to the cold reality of taking a life to protect another, no other book dives so deep inside the life of a sniper on point.

WWI: Tales from the Trenches


Daniel Wrinn - 2020
    Uncover their mesmerizing, realistic stories of combat, courage, and distress in readable and balanced stories told from the front lines.Witness the creation of new technologies of destruction: tanks, planes, and submarines; machine guns and field artillery; poison gas and chemical warfare. It introduced U-boat packs and strategic bombing, unrestricted war on civilians and mistreatment of prisoners.World War I reduced Europe’s mightiest empires to rubble, killed twenty million people, and cracked the foundations of our modern world. In its wake, empires toppled, monarchies fell, and whole populations lost their national identities.If you like gripping, authentic accounts of life and combat during WWI, then you won't want to miss WWI: Tales from the Trenches.

Sniper in Helmand: Six Months on the Frontline


James Cartwright - 2012
    As a result, snipers are regarded as the elite of their units and their skills command the ungrudging respect of their fellows - and the enemy. The Author is one such man who recently served a full tour of duty with 1st Battalion the Royal Anglian Regiment in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. James describes the highs and lows of almost daily front line action experienced by our soldiers deployed on active service in arguably the most dangerous area of the world. As part of the Battle Groups crack Mobile Operations Group, Jamess mission was to liquidate as many Taliban as possible. The reader experiences sniper tactics and actions, whether in ambush or quick pre-planned strikes, amid the ever present lethal danger of IEDs. His book, the first to be written by a trained sniper in Afghanistan, reveals the psychological pressures and awesome life-and-death responsibility of his role and, in particular, the deadly cat-and-mouse games with the enemy snipers intent on their own kills. These involved the clinical killing of targets at ranges of 1,000 meters or greater. Sniper in Helmand is a thrilling action-packed, yet very human, account of both front line service in the intense Afghanistan war and first-hand sniper action. Andy McNab inspired James to join the army and has written a moving foreword.

Guardian Angel: Life and Death Adventures with Pararescue, the World's Most Powerful Commando Rescue Force


William F. Sine - 2012
    PJs (short for para-jumpers), are members of an elite unit whose commando skills are so wide-reaching they often seem like something out of science fiction. They routinely tackle perilous operations that are beyond the capabilities of other rescue organizations, and sometimes dare the seemingly impossible. Since their inception in 1947, PJs have saved more than thirty thousand lives. They can pluck near-frozen climbers off jagged mountaintops and recover shot-down jet pilots stranded deep in hostile territory. In the dead of night, the PJs parachute into ominous, black, twenty-foot-tall waves to save distressed seamen, and they brave the cruelest and most desolate deserts to recover victims. US Air Force pararescuemen have played a prominent role in every armed conflict since the Korean War, rescuing thousands of soldiers from behind enemy lines. Guardian Angel provides a rare glimpse at a PJ’s mind-blowing adventures. You follow Sgt. Sine’s trek across exotic lands and share his encounters with mysterious cultures. Learn what it takes to lower from a helicopter onto the slippery decks of storm-tossed ships to rescue dying sailors. Feel what it’s like to be caught in the middle of a bomb blast so powerful that it tears high-rise buildings in half, and flattens armored vehicles hundreds of yards away. Soar high above towering jungle trees and experience the danger of swinging on a slim cable below a helicopter, while performing a mid-air rescue of a pilot, dangling from his chute a hundred feet above a mountain slope. Go to war in Afghanistan and parachute onto a nocturnal battlefield, surrounded by land mines, to help a mortally wounded soldier. This is a deadly serious business: When things go wrong, they can go terribly wrong. Aircraft crash into mountainsides, killing all onboard, while some PJs live through horrendous helicopter crashes only to struggle with freezing temperatures, snapped limbs and torn flesh in a desperate fight for survival. This book presents true stories of uncommon courage told from the perspective of the actual men in the arena. PJs belong to an exclusive brotherhood and forge unbreakable bonds of loyalty, commitment, and sacrifice. They do these things for their country, to protect their brothers in arms, and to honor their motto: “That Others May Live.”

Things I'll Never forget: Memories of a Marine in Viet Nam


James M. Dixon - 2017
    These are his memories of funny times, disgusting times and deadly times. The author kept a journal for an entire year; therefore many of the dates, times and places are accurate. The rest is based on memories that are forever tattooed on his brain. This is not a pro-war book, nor is it anti-war. It is the true story of what the Marine Corps was like in the late 1960’s, when the country had a draft and five hundred thousand Americans were serving one year tours in battle-torn South East Asia. If you served in Viet Nam you will want to compare your experience with the author’s. If you know someone who went to Viet Nam, you will want to read for yourself what it was like. If you lost a loved one or friend in the war, you will want to read this and share it with others.

Back in the Fight: The Explosive Memoir of a Special Operator Who Never Gave Up


Joseph Kapacziewski - 2013
    A grenade fell through the gunner’s hatch and exploded, shattering Kapacziewski’s right leg below the knee, damaging his right hip, and severing a nerve and artery in his right arm.He endured more than forty surgeries, but his right leg still wasn’t healing as he had hoped, so in March 2007, Kapacziewski chose to have it amputated with one goal in mind: to return to the line and serve alongside his fellow Rangers. One year after his surgery, Kapacziewski accomplished his goal: he was put back on the line, as a squad leader of his Army Ranger Regiment.On April 19, 2010, during his ninth combat deployment (and fifth after losing his leg), Kapacziewski’s patrol ran into an ambush outside a village in eastern Afghanistan. After a fellow Ranger fell to withering enemy fire, shot through the belly, Sergeant Kap and another soldier dragged him seventy-five yards to safety and administered first aid that saved his life while heavy machineguns tried to kill them. His actions earned him an Army Commendation Medal with “V” for Valor. He had previously been awarded a Bronze Star for Valor—and a total of three Purple Hearts for combat wounds.

Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America, and the New Face of American War


Evan Wright - 2004
    It's only five in the afternoon, but a sandtorm has plunged everything into a hellish twilight of murky, red dust. On rooftops, in alleyways lurk militiamen with machine guns, AK rifles and the odd rocket-propelled grenade. Artillery bombardment has shattered the town's sewers and rubble is piled up in lagoons of human excrement. It stinks. Welcome to Iraq... Within hours of 9/11, America's war on terrorism fell to those like the 23 Marines of the First Recon Battalion, the first generation dispatched into open-ed combat since Vietnam. They were a new breed of American warrior unrecognizable to their forebears-soldiers raised on hip hop, Internet porn, Marilyn Manson, video games and The Real World, a band of born-again Christians, dopers, Buddhists, and New Agers who gleaned their precepts from kung fu movies and Oprah Winfrey. 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. 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.

Fighting for the French Foreign Legion


Alex Lochrie - 2009
    The author describes how, with no French language ability, he approached recruiters for the French Foreign Legion in Paris and the demanding selection process that followed. When he was accepted, he and other prospective legionnaires were sent to Southern France to begin the harsh recruit training course. The mix of different nationalities and backgrounds among his fellows was enormous. New members are traditionally allowed to change their identities - the author chose to alter his age becoming 28 not 38! Elite paratrooper training followed in Corsica before the author earned his 'wings'.The FFL is never far from the front line and we read of challenging active service in former French colonies in Africa as well as during the First Gulf War, evicting Saddam Hussein from Kuwait and operations in Bosnia and Sarajevo.This is a completely authentic book that lifts the veil of mystery and myth and reveals much about the realities of service in the Foreign Legion. The author is not given to exaggeration - there is no need for it. A gripping read.

The Operator: Firing the Shots that Killed Osama bin Laden and My Years as a SEAL Team Warrior


Robert O'Neill - 2017
    After officially becoming a SEAL, O’Neill would spend more than a decade in the most intense counterterror effort in US history. For extended periods, not a night passed without him and his small team recording multiple enemy kills—and though he was lucky enough to survive, several of the SEALs he’d trained with and fought beside never made it home.The Operator describes the nonstop action of O’Neill’s deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, evokes the black humor of years-long combat, brings to vivid life the lethal efficiency of the military’s Tier One units, and reveals firsthand details of the most celebrated terrorist takedown in history.

Life as a Battle of Britain Pilot


Jonathan Falconer - 2010
    

The Regiment: 15 Years in the SAS


Rusty Firmin - 2015
    It is a secretive and mysterious unit, whose operations and internal structures are hidden from the public eye. Now, one of its longest-serving veterans offers a glimpse into the shadowy world of the SAS. Rusty Firmin spent an incredible 15 years with 'The Regiment' and was a key figure in the assault of the Iranian Embassy in London in May 1980. Newly revised and available in paperback, this is the unforgettable chronicle of Rusty's combat experiences – a fascinating and intimate portrayal of what it was like to be part of the world's most respected Special Operations Force.