His classic book "No Mean Soldier" was an immediate bestseller and set the bar for the modern military memoir. Few have since met its match. This completely revised and expanded edition sees a philosophical McAleese revisiting his time with Britain's Parachute Regiment, the SAS, Rhodesia's SAS and the South African Defense Force's 44 Para Brigade. Oh, and a few other adventures in and between - Colombia, private military companies and near fatal skydiving accidents; mercenary, soldier of fortune or flawed ideologist? Now's your time to consider this and more - as has McAleese himself. It's a compelling read - and with the addition of previously unpublished photos from McAleese's private collection, there's no other way to describe it. "Beyond No Mean Soldier" does exactly that, going deep and further beyond the experience of "No Mean Soldier". Over many months and into the early hours, McAleese reflected on his wide and expansive experiences - the men he's served with and the operations he'd conducted. Here in startling detail are the Aden insurgency, covert operations with the Rhodesian SAS and one of the first ever operational HALO inserts in British military history. Heart pumping assaults on SWAPO positions with 44 Para's Pathfinder Company and the sheer terror of flawed mercenary operations in Angola with the likes of 'Colonel Callan'; near death in Colombia when an assassination attempt went terribly wrong. McAleese recounts all of this with amazing clarity and even more humility. 'I'm just an ordinary person who happened to find himself doing extraordinary things' he says. Yes, perhaps that's true to a point, but what rides through all of McAleese's narrative is his total commitment to the profession of arms - soldiering. His attention to detail, his consummate knowledge of military skills from field craft to skill at arms; airborne operations to the tactics of small unit SAS operations.... All of this echoed by the commentary of the numerous individuals that served with McAleese. From around the world, dozens have contributed perspective, commentary and reflection. "Pete does not take fools gladly and this is based upon his comprehensive combat experience where idiots will cause casualties" Alistair Mackenzie - Former 22 SAS Officer. "I managed to get myself into some very nasty but also exciting scraps while latching on to the Pathfinders to see how they were shaping up as the so-called 'Philistines'. They did excellently while under fire, proof that Peter's selection and training regime paid high dividends" Colonel Jan Breytenbach - Former Commander 44 Para Brigade Pathfinder Company, Founder 32 Battalion. These are just two of the contributions featured in "Beyond No Mean Soldier". In an age where we debate courage and leadership, it's all here. Go Beyond No Mean Soldier, it will certainly change the way you see soldiering.

    At the time, he would have done anything to escape; only upon reflection years later did he realize that the self-confidence instilled in him by his drill instructors had probably saved his life in Vietnam. A few months after boot camp, Private Ball was shipped out to Vietnam, joining F Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines, near Khe Sanh. As a grunt, in the vernacular of the Corps, Ball, like the other youths of F Company, did a difficult and deadly job in such places as the A Shau Valley, Leatherneck Square, the DMZ and other obscure but critical I Corps locales. His--their--fear of death mingled with homesickness. Little did they realize that the horrors of the Vietnam War--horrors that while in-country they often claimed did not even exist--would haunt them for the rest of their lives.

    Here, collected for the first time and posthumously, are Fleming's favorite works. He takes us back to the days of the founders, detailing the surprising facts of American life in 1776, including its resemblance to today. He tells the seldom-told tale of the Loyalists, supporters of England who acted on their political convictions with impressive courage during the Revolution, and reveals little-known facets of men ranging from Franklin to Lafayette, Howe to Washington. He concludes with the Constitutional Convention of 1787 when fifty-five men from twelve virtually autonomous states came to Philadelphia in a brave - some thought foolhardy - attempt to replace a loose and fragile confederation with a strong national government. Their astonishing achievement became a standard of enlightenment the world over.

    28 photographs; 3 maps.

    They intend to make a political statement by slamming a hijacked aircraft with hundreds of innocent people on board into an unknown target, possibly a nuclear power station, on the British mainland. As MI5 and Special Branch closely monitor the terrorist cell, a second al-Qaeda team arrive. MI5 have to make a quick decision, split their resources in two or take a chance and let them run. With no prior knowledge of what's about to happen on the other side of the pond, they decide to let them run. Bad call! With the Heathrow team safely apprehended, and a D Notice placed on the media, British Military Intelligence considers their efforts enough to protect the people of the United Kingdom. How wrong they'll be proved.Once news of the cowardly, indiscriminate attacks on the Twin Towers in the US start to filter through, MI5 realise their mistake. With their only credible agent in Afghanistan down, and no more information available, British Intelligence decide to send in a team to retrieve as much intelligence as possible. MI5 contact one of their Black Ops personnel. Jonny Davies, an ordinary guy, with extraordinary talents is asked to undertake an exceptional mission to liberate the information MI5 need if they're to stop the other terrorist cell before they can act against British targets. Reluctant to go at first, Ex-SAS Ops Sergeant Davies is persuaded with a million pounds to go; but he'll only accept the job if he can take a team with him. Even Jonny Davies won't do the Afghan run on his own. MI5 have no choice, it's accept Davies' terms or do it themselves. In this warts and all novel we see the raw nature of ordinary men pushed to the extreme. Davies will use any means necessary to achieve his objective. Against international law, he's driving into Afghanistan in a large white 4x4 with UN markings, flying a UN flag and Irish tricolour. It's what Jonny Davies does; he lies, cheats, bluffs, bribes and chances his luck. And if that doesn't work, he embraces the extreme alternative of military fire-power. He locks and loads and shoots whatever's in front of him.Once inside Afghanistan fire-fights with bandits, tribal factions and drugs runners soon follow. When he and his team reach Jalalabad they're expected to infiltrate the Devil's lair, immobilise the guards with a blade, enter the compound, extract the information and then blow the compound to smithereens. MI5 want it to look as though a US air strike has destroyed the place, and thus act on the information retrieved without al-Qaeda being any the wiser.Back home, and with the mission complete, Jonny Davies and his team look forwards to a big pay-day, only to find MI5 have an extended agenda.If the boys want paying, they'll have to go morally, a lot further than they've already been. What price a man's conscience? Would you kill for your country? Would you kill innocent women and children for your country? Unarmed civilians? This is what the British Secret Intelligent Service will ask Davies and his team to do if they want paying. On the horns of a dilemma the boys will have to make a difficult choice, commit an act of murder for the State, or wave their wages goodbye. What would you do? Honestly!

    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.

    For an intelligence analyst without SEAL training, it can be traumatic. Navy Lieutenant (JG) Lee Toliver, Naval Academy Graduate, Linguist and Middle East Polyglot, is assigned to Trident, an Office of Naval Intelligence group dedicated to Naval Special Warfare Command. Having survived injuries from a suicide bombing in London, and almost a year in and out of Brooke Military Burn Center in Texas, he is ready to get his career back on track and anticipating his introduction to the SEAL Team he will support. American born linguists fluent in Middle East languages are in short supply and always in demand. His fluency in Pashto brought him to the attention of Detachment Bravo of SEAL Team 2 deploying to Bagram, Afghanistan. But Lee was also fluent in several dialects of Arabic. Seal Team 3 was raging across Anbar Province in Iraq, and in 2006, Ramadi is back on the radar for a major operation. Lee is about to find out that deploying with a SEAL Team has only a passing acquaintance with intelligence office work. In SEAL Team direct action ops, interpreters and interrogators are needed outside the wire as much as inside. Going kinetic, is a term he will come to understand intimately.

    Setting the record straight that soldiers were not drug addicts, murderers, and baby killers, Launer documents that American media bias led to the public misunderstanding of the war. The action within is violent, bloody, and never ending, leading many veterans to devastating physical and psychological trauma upon their return home to the USA.

    This promise, to look after her younger sister, is one she has always kept, even though Marie sometimes feels that the cosseted Grainne doesn't deserve it.But then the sudden appearance of intense, rebellious Con on Seaview Beach one afternoon changes everything.As her childhood comes to a sudden and shocking end, Marie must make some choices about her future.But will she find the courage to become the woman she was meant to be? The House on Seaview Road is a story about first love, growing up and about the enduring bonds of sisterhood.

    

    At the end of 1811, after four years of hard warfare against the forces of Napoleon, Wellington was not prepared to waste the Winter months and therefore he used them to capture, at great cost, the two ‘keys of Spain’: Cuidad Rodrigo and Badajoz. With these two now in Allied possession the story continues with Wellington advancing forward into Spain at the head of an Allied army to begin the campaigns of 1812. During this momentous year huge questions dominate the European stage, not least the aftermath of Napoleon’s disastrous invasion of Russia and the loss of an army of 600,000 men and all their horses and equipment. The following twelve months extending into 1813 is a year of titanic set-piece battles which will settle, one way or another, the fate of Spain and Portugal within the French Empire and also events far away over the Atlantic will have their own part to play, with the armies of the new Republic chancing their arm with their own invasions of Canada. Both triumph and tragedy befall the Allied army during 1812, first the complete victory of Salamanca, then the near farce and tragedy of the Burgos siege, followed by a retreat back to Cuidad Rodrigo, worse than that of Coruna due to acute starvation. British Intelligence makes full use of Napoleon’s tragedy, weaving deceit on both sides of the Atlantic, such that El Rey Joseph is ordered to send men back to France and then in 1813 the Allies spring forward from the Portuguese border, with an advance so rapid that within three weeks there comes the triumph of Vitoria and then fighting to open the passes over the Pyrenees into France itself. As part of what is now a formidable army, the 105th Foot Wessex The Prince of Wales Own, must first contend with the retirement of their Colonel, Bertram Lacey, finally worn down by years of intense campaigning and finally the horrors of Badajoz. His replacement is Carr’s old enemy from his last visit back to England after Talavera, this replacement being Sir Ambrose Brockenhurst MP, the Colonel of the 105th’s Militia, him arrived from England to take over from Lacey and the result is incompetence and even humiliation. Carr is promoted to temporary Brevet-Colonel, but their reputation is now sullied, yet the 105th play their part in Salamanca and endure the retreat from Burgos. With the Spring of 1813, all Allied armies advance to Vitoria to play their part in this momentous battle and take part in the conflicts in the Pyrenees, where, on the far right of Wellington’s line at the battle of Sorauren outside Pamplona, the 105th’s reputation is finally restored. Throughout all, the band led by Colour-Sergeant Jedediah Deakin hold together, giving mutual support and comfort, and taking advantage of any opportunity that comes their way which may soften the hard and dangerous life they necessarily lead.

    Nui Ba Dien or the “Black Virgin Mountain” served as a major staging area for the last finger of the infamous Ho Chi Minh trail as it crossed the Cambodian border just a few miles to the West. Honeycombed with hundreds of caves and fortified with elite NVA and Viet Cong soldiers, she stood as a “Thorn in the Side” of American military control of the region. The 25th Infantry Division held a communication site on her highest peak and also the land encircling her base but her slopes were voraciously defended by large numbers of elite enemy soldiers. Anytime any American unit undertook to engage her slopes, a hellacious battle was guaranteed with the “Angel of Death” always hovering near! These memoirs illuminate more than just the courage of battle but also the courage and inner strength that the soldiers of Vietnam had to shoulder upon their return home. Courage and dignity qualify all Vietnam Veterans such that the country that at one time turned their back on them now holds them in high esteem. This is my story, start to finish and it was written to enlighten the reader to a greater understanding of the American men and women and their struggles for survival in America’s most unpopular war!

    The new book Into Infamy is Staff Sergeant Joe Chamblin's account of the men and Marines behind the video and what they accomplished in the War on Terror.Remembered for the video, for the first time anywhere Staff Sergeant Chamblin tells his story of the brave young men who've been so vilified by the media and their superiors when they should have been honored for the trail blazing work they performed as Marine Snipers in combat.They were so effective as snipers, introducing new tactics to the battlefield and killing nearly three hundred enemy combatants that the Commandant of the Marine Corps held a private breakfast for Chamblin's teams, along with the Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps.Read their story and how everyone suddenly forgot their accomplishments when a seconds long video appeared on YouTube. These men are victims of, yes, a their own 17 second lapse in judgment ... but more importantly the political correctness that is destroying America.

    Almost twelve years of age, he volunteers for the King's service, in the struggle against Napoleon and to help his war wounded father survive. A tale of bravery, family honor and finding out just what you are made of.