The boats, ordered by Israel from a local shipyard, had been embargoed for more than a year by French President Charles de Gaulle. In a brazen caper, the Israelis were now running off with them. As the boats raced for home and Paris fumed, the world media chortled at Israel’s hutspa. But the story was far bigger than they knew.Eight years before, the commander of the Israeli navy had assembled senior officers for a brainstorming session. The navy faced downgrading to a coast guard unless it could reconstitute itself as a fighting force on a starvation budget. What to do? A desperate proposal emerged from the two-day meeting.Israel’s fledgling military industries had developed a crude missile which was rejected by both the army and air force. The navy would now try adapting it. If placed on small patrol boats, the missiles, with their large warheads, could give these cheap vessels the punch of a heavy cruiser.Over the next decade, engineers working virtually round-the-clock developed the first missile boats in the West. Of a dozen boat platforms ordered in Cherbourg seven sailed before the embargo. The five that escaped completed the flotilla. But the Soviets had meanwhile also developed missile boats which they distributed to their Arab allies. Their powerful and accurate missiles had twice the range of Israel’s. To secure Israel’s sea lanes, the navy devised electronic countermeasures that would hopefully divert the enemy missiles.On the first night of the Yom Kippur War, an Israeli squadron engaged three Syrian missile boats in the first ever missile-to-missile battle at sea. The Syrian boats fired first but all three were sunk. Two nights later, three Egyptian missile boats were sunk. The electronic umbrella had worked and no Israeli boat was hit. A new naval age had dawned.

    This is a detailed description of the life of one helicopter pilot and what he did in the air, on the ground, with the people during his first tour in the Central Highlands while assigned to and flying for an Infantry Division, the Cambodia Invasion, and what it was really like living in Vietnam. The second tour was in the Saigon area with an Air Cavalry Troop and recounts live for Americans at the final months of the War, final cease fire events, prisoner exchanges, life on the ground, Saigon, the final flight of combat troops to leave Vietnam and the end of American combat operations and involvement. For those who want to know what it was like to be there -- without the hidden agenda, embellishment, or hype normally associated with the Vietnam War

    Black Cat 2-1 is the story of one pilot who made it home and the valiant men he served with who risked their lives for the troops on the ground. Bob Ford invites readers into the Huey helicopters he flew on more than 1,000 missions when he and his men dared to protect and rescue. For those whose voices were silenced in that faraway place or who have never told their stories, he creates a tribute that reads like a thriller, captures the humor of men at war, and resounds with respect for those who served with honor.

    Woulfe compares this training exercise with other schemes in other branches of service.

    This book is not “ten easy steps” for a painless life; instead, it is a collection of devotions that squarely addresses the challenges wives face when their husbands are away protecting freedom, challenges like:How does a military wife maintain a strong sense of patriotism without allowing her country to become an idol?What good can possibly come from moving every two or three years?How can I be sure that God has a purpose for my life that’s as strong as His purpose for my husband’s?The foundation of this devotional is the unchanging character of God and the anchor of Jesus Christ, even amidst the shifting circumstances of a military family.

    John Edmund Delezen felt a kinship with the people he was instructed to kill in Vietnam; they were all at the mercy of the land. His memoir begins when he enlisted in the Marine Corps and was sent to Vietnam in March of 1967. He volunteered for the Third Force Recon Company, whose job it was to locate and infiltrate enemy lines undetected and map their locations and learn details of their status. The duty was often painful both physically and mentally. He was stricken with malaria in November of 1967, wounded by a grenade in February of 1968 and hit by a bullet later that summer. He remained in Vietnam until December, 1968. Delezen writes of Vietnam as a man humbled by a mysterious country and horrified by acts of brutality. The land was his enemy as much as the Vietnamese soldiers. He vividly describes the three-canopy jungle with birds and monkeys overhead that could be heard but not seen, venomous snakes hiding in trees and relentless bugs that fed on men. He recalls stumbling onto a pit of rotting Vietnamese bodies left behind by American forces, and days when fierce hunger made a bag of plasma seem like an enticing meal. He writes of his fallen comrades and the images of war that still pervade his dreams. This book contains many photographs of American Marines and Vietnam as well as three maps.

    

    They did not talk about their mom's extended absences or why their dad put Scotch tape on the backdoor frame. To cover up the chaos, they kept their clothes neat and got good grades. But when they were teenagers, an arson fire destroyed their home and killed their parents. Rumors were thick that summer that smart, angry, fourteen-year-old Lisa set the blaze. Then, adult powers they did not understand squelched the investigation. As teenagers accustomed to keeping silent, they packed up and moved on.Forty years later, Leigh, the oldest, decided it was time to find out who killed their parents. She obtained copies of the police and fire investigations and began unwrapping the past. This memoir is the story of that investigation as Leigh tried to piece together the truth, but found more lies instead. With the help of her sisters, Leigh was able to reconstruct much of what happened to them in the beach towns around Atlantic City in the early 1970s. After the fire, one sister turned to heroin and another to alcohol; Leigh became Miss Atlantic City. Then, one by one, they each moved to California and shut the door on their past, even though they privately wondered whether one of them killed Frank and Nancy Overton. It's funny. They never wondered whether one of their parents was trying to kill them.

    After a tragic accident took the lives of his wife and youngest son, as well as destroying his body to the brink of death, Olsen experienced a miracle. His out-of-body, near-death, and after-death communication experiences have guided him to a life of purpose and gratitude.

    The ground crews who waited underneath these formidable aircraft, ready to launch them on their one-way mission now have stories to tell. The same ground crews who maintained the aircraft, keeping them ever ready to perform their lethal mission. We learn of a hush-hush visit to a British V-Bomber base by a sitting U.S. President or about an unwilling stowaway facing the prospect of a potentially fatal flight in a Vulcan, while another perfectly willing stowaway ends up hundreds of miles from his home. Russian KGB espionage and subversion are also revealed. The author and some of his colleagues from that long ago era tell their stories that range from the frigid iciness of Goose Bay in northern Canada to the sun-drenched island of Malta, but mostly take place on our own British V-bomber bases. Learn about some of the behind-the-scenes activities that it took to service and maintain a Vulcan bomber and some facts versus fiction concerning the Vulcan’s brief role in the James Bond film, Thunderball. Share the low point and heart-wrenching grief when an entire aircrew is lost in a tragic accident, contrasted with the high jinks during an overseas detachment. All this and much, much more. This book is a must read for V-Bomber veterans or anyone with an interest in the magnificent Avro Vulcan.

    Average 70kg D**khead tracks key life events of Dr Dan Pronk from his beginnings as an average chubby kid, through his failed attempt at professional triathlon, onto becoming a doctor, joining army Special Forces, being decorated for his conduct in action in Afghanistan, and then onto his post-army career as a medical executive and co-owner of a multimillion dollar business. Throughout the book Dan shares his motivational philosophies and key lessons learned from his journey. He breaks down the goal setting process and provides examples of how seemingly impossible goals can be deconstructed into smaller and smaller achievable sub-goals, creating a clear pathway to getting started and moving towards your ambitious objectives. Dan highlights the crucial factor of persistence in goal attainment and uses case studies from the Special Forces selection process to illustrate that average people with above-average persistence will beat stronger, smarter, faster, and more educated people who are not as willing to persist every time. This book will inspire you to do more. Be it to get off the couch and get started, or double down on your existing goals and supercharge your commitment to them. You only get one go at this life, so what are you waiting for? Give it a read and get going!

    He won renown as a battlefield hero and was the most decorated Marine in U.S. history at the time of his death in 1940. Old Gimlet Eye is a boots-on-the-ground account of his many tours of duty, offering invaluable insight into early US military strategy and tactics, weaponry, equipment and many other fascinating field details from the Spanish-American War to World War I and beyond. This new annotated edition of Old Gimlet Eye includes original footnotes and images. *Original footnotes. *Includes images.

    <br><br>Part Tuscan idyll and part cautionary tale, Wendy Laird’s latest Kindle Single tells the flip-side story of expat existence, what it takes to make it happen, and how a life on a well-mapped trajectory can veer off course in the process. Laird’s beautiful prose and acerbic wit keep the book, if not her own agenda, on the right track.

    It includes tales of living through a lifetime of dysfunction, violence and terror at the hands of both her father and other nefarious individuals who would seek to perpetuate the cycle. More importantly though, it is also a story of how they did not succeed in this hateful quest, as Jvonne struggled on and through to the other side to embrace love, laughter and the pursuit of personal happiness. Part of this amazing transformation even led to her adoption of a biracial infant, an event that served both as a healing elixir to her soul and a grandiose “!#%& you” to all the ugliness that hate brings.

    From canoe camping next to unnamed lakes, to kayaking in Alaska’s pristine waters, she describes her many encounters with the bears, moose and other animals that make this wilderness their home. With her partner David she helped to build a cabin on a remote piece of property, off the grid and accessible only by boat. Illustrated with the photos she took along the way, her story is sometimes comic, and sometimes tragic, but throughout its pages she speaks with the voice of one who loves nature and the wilderness.