Recommend this book!

bruno

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Just finished reading "The Fourth Star" (David Cloud & Greg Jaffe, 2009) which is a relatively short biography of Generals Abizaid, Petraeous,Casey and Chiarelli and their experiences in Iraq. This is an excellent read and really gives you some good insights into the culture of the US Army and the challenges faced in Iraq in adapting the Army to fight a counterinsurgency war. I would highly recommend this book.
 
And I just finished this book: A Sailor’s Story, by Capt. Allan P. Slaff, USN (Ret). It is his autobiography that details his life from his graduation from USNA in 1944 to his retirement and beyond. He was a Dean at the Harvard Business School for 10 years.

http://webpages.charter.net/hobblebush/pages/sailors.html

sounds interesting- haven't seen it at the book store-I guess I will have to order it on line?
TPG if you haven't read "Four Stars" go get it- you will appreciate the dilemma that faced these 4 as they walked into the mess that was Baghdad and the issues that they had to face. I would like to have seen Gen Mattis profiled as well as from what I have read he had clearly arrived at an understanding of the nature of the war pretty early on in the game.
 
From one of the old guys:

http://www.lzxray.com/

"We Were Soldiers Once.....And Young". Great book and movie adaptation. Three MOH and uncountable decorations. Rick Riscorla, survived Ia Drang November 1965 Vietnam and was murdered on 9/11/2001. It is an old war but it is still the same fight.
 
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German Boy and Coming To Colorado

Another great read. These are the biographies of USAF Colonel Wolfgang Samuel...German Boy is about his childhood, which he spent as a German refugee of war in the after math of WWII. It made me realize that the horror of war continues even after war has ended....Coming to Colorado is about his difficult journey from a German Boy immigrant to realizing his dreams of becoming a flyer and the ULITMATE American: A military member.
 
"Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway".


EVERYTHING you have ever learned about that battle has been WRONG. In some cases, FRAUDULENTLY wrong.
 
Zaphod:
Sounds like a great book and the reviews were great. I have to try and find this one. Reviews sound like Harold II, King James and Napoleon writing from the other side after Hastings, Boyne and Waterloo. If they weren't dead or exiled and allowed to write a book. Bottom line was Akagi, Kaga, Hiryu and Soryu sunk. Nagumo lost and Nimitz won. The war in the Pacific then became a battle of attrition (more casualties on Iwo Jima than on D-Day). Another interesting read is "The Rise And Fall Of The Great Powers" by Paul Kennedy. It is very pertinent to today's world.
 
Zaphod:
Sounds like a great book and the reviews were great. I have to try and find this one. Reviews sound like Harold II, King James and Napoleon writing from the other side after Hastings, Boyne and Waterloo. If they weren't dead or exiled and allowed to write a book. Bottom line was Akagi, Kaga, Hiryu and Soryu sunk. Nagumo lost and Nimitz won. The war in the Pacific then became a battle of attrition (more casualties on Iwo Jima than on D-Day).

It's far more than that. The authors provide a minute-by-minute breakdown of where the planes were, where the carriers were, and where the planes ON the carriers were.

It turns out that a lot of what Fuchida wrote after WWII was total bull****, and it has clouded every historical perception of that battle since. Even the great Gordon W. Prange got sucked into it.

The Americans weren't lucky, and Midway wasn't a turning point for the reasons so many accept. Hell, even in Nagumo had won at Midway, Japan STILL would have lost the war.

Get it and read it. AWESOME book!
 
The Unforgiving Minute was a very good book.
I'd definitely recommend The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors as well.

I'm currently going through Leave No Man Behind, about combat search and rescue. It is very detailed (which also makes it quite long). Pretty good, so far, IMO.
 
A book I have read several times and was just the subejct of a column by columnist David Brooks: We Die Alone by David Howarth. This is the story of perhaps the most amazing feat of dedication and survival I've ever read- it tells the story of a Norwegian Commando in WW2.
Link to David Brooks column is below:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/02/opinion/02brooks.html

The United States, a nation of 300 million, won nine gold medals this year in the Winter Olympics. Norway, a nation of 4.7 million, also won nine. This was no anomaly. Over the years, Norwegians have won more gold medals in Winter Games, and more Winter Olympics medals over all, than people from any other nation
There must be many reasons for Norway’s excellence, but some of them are probably embedded in the story of Jan Baalsrud.

In 1943, Baalsrud was a young instrument maker who was asked to sneak back into Norway to help the anti-Nazi resistance.

His mission, described in the book “We Die Alone” by David Howarth, was betrayed...
Read the rest of the column & then GET THE BOOK- you will find it unbelievable (but it is true and every year in the area around Tromso Norway there is a community hike to retrace the steps of Jan Baalsrud as he staggered across the mountains to Sweden).:thumb:
 
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