DonaldAs A SEAL and combat medic, Mark served his country with valorous distinction for almost twenty-five years and survived some of the most dangerous combat actions imaginable.From the rigors of BUD/S training to the horrors of the battlefield, Battle Ready dramatically immerses the reader in the unique life of the elite warrior-medic who advances into combat with life-saving equipment in one hand and life-taking weapons in the other. It is also an uplifting human story that reveals how a young Hispanic American bootstrapped himself out of a life that promised a dead-end future by enlisting in the military. That new life begins with the Marines and includes his heroic achievements on the battlefield and the operating table, and finally, of his inspirational triumph over the demons caused by Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that threatened to destroy him and his family.

    Marine Special Operations Team 8222 on their assignment to the remote and isolated Taliban stronghold known as Bala Murghab as they conduct special operations in an effort to break the Taliban's grip on the Valley. What started out as a routine mission changed when two 82nd Airborne Paratroopers tragically drowned in the Bala Murghab River while trying to retrieve vital supplies from an air drop that had gone terribly wrong. In this one moment, the focus and purpose of the friendly forces at Forward Operating Base Todd, where Team 8222 was assigned, was forever altered as a massive clearing operation was initiated to break the Taliban's stranglehold on the valley and recover the bodies.From close-quarters firefights in Afghan villages to capturing key-terrain from the Taliban in the unforgiving Afghan winter, this intense and personal story depicts the brave actions and sacrifices of MSOT 8222. Readers will understand the hopelessness of being pinned down under a hail of enemy gunfire and the quake of the earth as a 2000 lb. guided bomb levels a fortified Taliban fighting position. A powerful and moving story of Marine Operators doing what they do best, Level Zero Heroes brings to life the mission of these selected few that fought side-by-side in Afghanistan, in a narrative as action-packed and emotional as anything to emerge from the Special Operations community contribution to the Afghan War.

    A band of elite warriors determined to fight to the death to protect Christianity’s holiest sites. A global financial network unaccountable to any government. A sinister plot founded on a web of lies.Jerusalem 1119. A small group of knights seeking a purpose in the violent aftermath of the First Crusade decides to set up a new order. These are the first Knights Templar, a band of elite warriors prepared to give their lives to protect Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land. Over the next two hundred years, the Templars would become the most powerful religious order of the medieval world. Their legend has inspired fervent speculation ever since. In this groundbreaking narrative history, Dan Jones tells the true story of the Templars for the first time in a generation, drawing on extensive original sources to build a gripping account of these Christian holy warriors whose heroism and alleged depravity have been shrouded in myth. The Templars were protected by the pope and sworn to strict vows of celibacy. They fought the forces of Islam in hand-to-hand combat on the sun-baked hills where Jesus lived and died, finding their nemesis in Saladin, who vowed to drive all Christians from the lands of Islam. Experts at channeling money across borders, they established the medieval world’s largest and most innovative banking network and waged private wars against anyone who threatened their interests.Then, as they faced setbacks at the hands of the ruthless Mamluk sultan Baybars and were forced to retreat to their stronghold in Cyprus, a vindictive and cash-strapped King of France set his sights on their fortune. His administrators quietly mounted a damning case against the Templars, built on deliberate lies and false testimony. Then on Friday October 13, 1307, hundreds of brothers were arrested, imprisoned and tortured, and the order was disbanded amid lurid accusations of sexual misconduct and heresy. They were tried by the Pope in secret proceedings and their last master was brutally tortured and burned at the stake. But were they heretics or victims of a ruthlessly repressive state? Dan Jones goes back to the sources tobring their dramatic tale, so relevant to our own times, in a book that is at once authoritative and compulsively readable.

    They were kicking up the dirt around me. Then all hell broke loose as the gunship's Gatling vomited ammo right over my head. The sound was deafening. It was now or never. I got up and ran.A captain in 29 Commando, Johnny Mercer served in the army for twelve years. On his third tour of Afghanistan he was a Joint Fires Controller, with the pressurized job of bringing down artillery and air strikes in close proximity to his own troops. Based in an area of northern Helmand that was riddled with Taliban leaders, he walked into danger with every patrol, determined to protect them. Then one morning, in brutal close quarter combat, everything changed...In We Were Warriors Johnny takes us from his commando training to the heat, blood and chaos of battle. With brutal honesty, he describes what it is like to risk your life every day, pushing through the fear that follows watching your friends die. He took the fight back to the enemy with a relentless efficiency that came at a high personal cost. Back in the UK, seeing the inadequate care available for veterans and their families, he was inspired to run for Parliament in the hope he could improve their plight. Unflinching, action-packed and laced with wry humour, We Were Warriors is a compelling read.

    Building upon that record and the recollections of other F-4G Wild Weasel aircrew, the authors show a slice of what life and war was like during that time. The pawns in the game, the ones that had to actually do the fighting and dying were the hundreds of thousands of men and women who left their homes and families to live for seemingly endless months in the vast, trackless desert while the world stage-play unfolded. To them, the war was deeply personal. At times, the war was scary; at other times, it was funny as hell. Usually, if you survive the former, it turns into the latter.

    From eyewitness accounts of the first post-war operations in Malaya in the 1950s to a controversial blueprint for the organisation's future, this book offers a controversial account of the SAS.

    As disturbingly eye-opening as it is adrenaline-charged, Jawbreaker races from CIA war rooms to diplomatic offices to mountaintop redoubts to paint a vivid portrait of a new kind of warfare, showing what can and should be done to deal a death blow to freedom’s enemies.

    He conducted over forty capture/kill missions with his men in Iraq, locating more than 120 al-Qaida insurgents. But his journey was not without supreme challenges—both emotional and physical. Redman is brutally honest about his struggles to learn how to be an effective leader, yet that effort pales beside the story of his critical wounding in 2007 while leading a mission against a key al-Qaida commander. On that mission his team was ambushed and he was struck by machine-gun fire at point-blank range.During the intense recovery period that followed, Redman gained national attention when he posted a sign on his door at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, warning all who entered not to "feel sorry for [his] wounds." His sign became both a statement and a symbol for wounded warriors everywhere.From his grueling SEAL training to his search for a balance between arrogance and humility, Redman shares it all in this inspiring and unforgettable account. He speaks candidly of the grit that sustained him despite grievous wounds, and of the extraordinary love and devotion of his wife, Erica, and his family, without whom he would not have survived.Vivid and powerful, emotionally resonant and illuminating, The Trident traces the evolution of a modern warrior, husband, and father, a man who has come to embody the never-say-die spirit that defines the SEALs, one of America's elite fighting forces.

    You attack the world’s fiercest defenses at 500 knots and share the ultimate thrill of hurling yourself against almost impossible odds–and winning.–JACK BROUGHTON, author of Thud RidgeEd Rasimus straps the reader into the cockpit of an F-105 Thunderchief fighter-bomber in his engaging account of the Rolling Thunder campaign in the skies over North Vietnam. Between 1965 and 1968, more than 330 F-105s were lost–the highest loss rate in Southeast Asia–and many pilots were killed, captured, and wounded because of the Air Force’s disastrous tactics. The descriptions of Rasimus’s one hundred missions, some of the most dangerous of the conflict, will satisfy anyone addicted to vivid, heart-stopping aerial combat, as will the details of his transformation from a young man paralyzed with self-doubt into a battle-hardened veteran. His unique perspective, candid analysis, and the sheer power of his narrative rank his memoir with the finest, most entertaining of the war. “A story that reflects the bravery of the men who flew over enemy territory in a perilous time.”–The Baltimore Chronicle“[A] MODERN-DAY RED BADGE OF COURAGE .”–JOHN DARRELL SHERWOOD, author of Fast Movers: Jet Pilots and the Vietnam ExperienceLook for these remarkable stories of American courage in the Vietnam warDOWN SOUTHOne Tour in Vietnamby William H. HardwickLOST IN TRANSLATIONVietnam: A Combat Advisor’s Storyby Martin J. Dockery MEDIC!The Story of a Conscientious Objector in the Vietnam Warby Ben Sherman WE WERE SOLDIERS ONCE . . . AND YOUNGIa Drang: The Battle that Changed the War in Vietnamby Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore and Joseph L. Galloway

    Johnson served in I Corps, in northern Vietnam, where combat was furious and the events he recounts emerge, stark and compelling: walking point in the A Shau Valley, braving enemy fire to rescue a downed comrade, surviving days and nights of relentless tension that suddenly exploded in the blinding fury of an NVA attack.Undimmed and unmuddied by the passing of years, Johnson's account is unique in the annals of Vietnam literature. Moreover, it is a timeless testimony to the sacrifice and heroism of the LRRPs who dared to risk it all.

    To a public suspicious about the motives for war, he offered some explanation for it and inspired a mood of optimism and humanity that has since been sadly lost. And yet, only two months later Collins was pilloried by two national newspapers and accused of war crimes. But this is only part of his story. From taking command of 1 Royal Irish in the aftermath of the Sierra Leone hostage crisis to combating the Loyalist murder gangs in East Tyrone, Rules of Engagement is a powerful memoir that offers a frank and compelling insight into the realities of warfare and a life lived on the frontline.

    At its controls was a 21-year-old pilot. Half his crew lay wounded or dead. It was their first mission. Suddenly, a sleek, dark shape pulled up on the bomber’s tail—a German Messerschmitt fighter. Worse, the German pilot was an ace, a man able to destroy the American bomber in the squeeze of a trigger. What happened next would defy imagination and later be called the most incredible encounter between enemies in World War II.This is the true story of the two pilots whose lives collided in the skies that day—the American—2nd Lieutenant Charlie Brown, a former farm boy from West Virginia who came to captain a B-17—and the German—2nd Lieutenant Franz Stigler, a former airline pilot from Bavaria who sought to avoid fighting in World War II.A Higher Call follows both Charlie and Franz’s harrowing missions. Charlie would face takeoffs in English fog over the flaming wreckage of his buddies’ planes, flak bursts so close they would light his cockpit, and packs of enemy fighters that would circle his plane like sharks. Franz would face sandstorms in the desert, a crash alone at sea, and the spectacle of 1,000 bombers each with eleven guns, waiting for his attack. Ultimately, Charlie and Franz would stare across the frozen skies at one another. What happened between them, the American 8th Air Force would later classify as “top secret.” It was an act that Franz could never mention or else face a firing squad. It was the encounter that would haunt both Charlie and Franz for forty years until, as old men, they would search for one another, a last mission that could change their lives forever.

    Over the next 11 years, operations took him from the jungles of East Timor to the rugged mountains of Afghanistan, from the southern Indian Ocean to Iraq. What he learned about friendship, and about himself, changed him forever.Fennell's missions forced him to stare death in the face many times. From dodging mines and bullets in Iraq's Anbar province to assisting the recovery effort after the Asian tsunami, his experiences are shocking and confronting - but also inspiring.An unflinching look inside the action and the fear, the tragedy and the bravery of one soldier's service in the Australian SAS, WARRIOR BROTHERS is also an edge-of-your-seat adrenaline ride with a group of men you will never forget.

    Our opponents have not been able to stand against conventional forces in battle, and resort to guerrilla tactics, engaging our forces with IEDs and ambushes. Into this mix of behind-the-lines attacks, combat logistics have played a larger role than ever.In Afghanistan particularly, the long convoy routes have been vulnerable to the same kind of surprise attacks suffered by the Soviets in past decades, the British 150 years ago, and Alexander the Great 2,000 years ago. In that godforsaken landlocked land, the means to supply a Western army has to be undertaken with blood and sweat, once the quick panacea of airpower is overtaxed.When he joined the Marines, Jeff Clement was not a high-speed, top-secret recon guy. A logistician instead, he led combat convoys across treacherous terrain in southern Afghanistan through frequent enemy attacks in order to resupply US and British positions. As such he and his vehicles were a constant target of the resistance, and each movement was a travail, often accompanied by thundering blasts as the insurgents paved their way with IEDs. Each movement was fraught with danger, even as each objective had to be met.The Lieutenant Don't Know provides a refreshing look at the nitty-gritty of what our troops have been dealing with in Afghanistan, from the perspective of a young officer who was willing to learn, and also take responsibility for his Marines in a confusing war where combat was not merely on the "front," but all around.

    Two bestselling books--Bravo Two Zero and The One That Got Away--were published and two of the soldiers, using the pseudonyms "Andy McNab" and "Chris Ryan", were launched into new careers as writers. Even the most uncritical reader of the two books would have been aware that some artistic licence had been employed. What Michael Asher claims is the truth about Bravo Two Zero is, however, astonishing. Asher, fluent in Arabic and familiar with the ways of the desert Arabs, travelled to Iraq 10 years after the Gulf War and re-traced the steps of the SAS patrol, finding Bedouin eyewitnesses to events. There is an almost comical disparity between McNab and Ryan's version of the mission and the version Asher reports. According to McNab, when the patrol was discovered, it was by Iraqi soldiers and a furious firefight ensued with the SAS men downing a dozen or more men before fleeing. According to Asher, the mission was "compromised" by three Arab locals, one of them a man in his 70s, and the SAS wisely decided that discretion was the better part of valour and withdrew. According to Ryan, on his lonely journey to the Syrian border, he was obliged to kill two Iraqis, one with his bare hands. According to Asher's sources, he omitted to mention this at his initial de-briefing. One of Asher's aims in his book is to rehabilitate the reputation of Vince Phillips, one of the dead. Most readers of this book and of the tale told by the Arab who discovered Phillips's body will probably decide that he has done so. Yet Asher does not seem motivated by a desire to denigrate the heroism of McNab and Ryan. We get the heroes we want and Asher understands that the Rambo-like exploits they reported were what we, and the media, demanded of them. Their real heroism, respected by both Asher and the Bedouins to whom he spoke, lay in their powers of endurance and determination when utterly isolated and alone, hundreds of miles inside enemy territory. In The Real Bravo Two Zero Asher has written a far better and more humane book than either of the two he deconstructs, but he still seems to understand why McNab and Ryan produced the books they did.--Nick Rennison