Combat Memoirs

Vietnam - There & Back: A Combat Medic's Chronicle is a candid account of the time when Jim Purtell and several other combat vets found themselves conducting operations in the jungles of Vietnam during and after the Tet Offensive. Purtell describes in gritty detail what it was like to live and fight with an infantry company only to return to anti-Vietnam sentiment so strong that he and his fellow veterans felt nobody cared about them or the sacrifices they made.

While lifting weights in the Seldon Jackson College gymnasium on a rainy autumn night, Jaed Coffin heard the distinctive whacking sound of sparring boxers down the hall. A year out of college, he had been biding his time as a tutor at a local high school in Sitka, Alaska, without any particular life plan. That evening, Coffin joined a ragtag boxing club. For the first time, he felt like he fit in.

Dave Lowry juxtaposes his singular experience as an adept student of kenjutsu (the art of swordsmanship) under a Japanese teacher in St. Louis with a riveting account of the samurai tradition in Japan. Intertwining tales of the masters with reflections on his own apprenticeship in the samurai's arts, he reveals in their time-honored methods a way of life with profound relevance to modern times.

On an evening that defined the Greed is Good 1980s, Donald Trump hosted a raft of celebrities and high rollers in a carnival town on the Jersey Shore to bask in the glow created by a 21-year-old heavyweight champion. Mike Tyson knocked out Michael Spinks that night, and in 91 frenzied seconds earned more than the annual payrolls of the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics combined.

Belfast's Carl ‘The Jackal' Frampton MBE is no ordinary boxer. One of only three fighters from the British Isles to be named the Ring magazine Fighter of the Year, he has headlined sellout world championship bouts on both sides of the Atlantic, winning multiple world titles in the process. His dedicated army of fans have traversed the globe to be ringside throughout it all. But Frampton's popularity far exceeds the traditional adulation for a sporting icon; he is regarded as a symbol of hope and unity by both sides of the sectarian divide in Northern Ireland.

In the early 1990s, Tommy Morrison, a young roughneck from Jay, Oklahoma, burst onto the boxing scene to become one of the most controversial fighters of his era. Handsome, eloquent, and dynamic, Morrison parlayed destructive knockout power and a homespun personality into celebrity status throughout middle America, where boxing rarely prospered. But it was his starring role in Rocky V alongside Sylvester Stallone that propelled him to stardom—and ultimately led to his tragic downfall.

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Foxcatcher by Mark Schultz, read by Stephen Mendel. On 22 January 1996, Dave Schultz, Olympic gold medalist and wrestling's golden boy, was shot in the back by John E. du Pont at the famed Foxcatcher estate in Pennsylvania. That started a two-day siege at the ranch before the du Pont family heir was finally captured.

Dedicated to the memory of two wrestling coaches and two writer friends, The Imaginary Girlfriend is John Irving's candid memoir of his twin careers in writing and wrestling. The award-winning author of best-selling novels from The World According to Garp to In One Person, Irving began writing when he was 14, the same age at which he began to wrestle at Exeter. He competed as a wrestler for 20 years, was certified as a referee at 24, and coached the sport until he was 47.

The stories of 15 combat veterans featured in this audiobook tell of the experiences of average Americans who fought US enemies on Pacific islands, in China, and in Burma during World War II. They relate much previously unavailable information about the military in which they served and the battles they fought. The possibility of death and permanent physical and mental injury was a common experience. This audiobook is a "must listen" for those who think they have learned all there is to know about World War II.

This volume presents information about causes and results of U.S. military actions and wars, since Vietnam, as well as Islam, American exceptionalism, and military challenges facing the U.S. It will give listeners an understanding of warfare, as the U.S. military has experienced it since the Vietnam War.

A gripping, all-access biography of Joe Frazier, whose rivalry with Muhammad Ali riveted boxing fans and whose legacy as a figure in American sports and society endures.

At the end of the 1976 football season, more than forty Harvard athletes went to Boston's Combat Zone to celebrate. In the city's adult entertainment district, drugs and prostitution ran rampant, violent crime was commonplace, and corrupt police turned the other way. At the end of the night, Italian American star athlete Andy Puopolo, raised in the city's North End, was murdered in a stabbing. Three African American men were accused of the crime. His murder made national news and led to the eventual demise of the city's red-light district.

Vietnam Saga is a very personal story of Stan Corvin's often perilous times in the US Army as a two-tour combat helicopter pilot in Vietnam. It is a true-life story of soldiers who fought for freedom and often for their very lives. Vietnam Saga is also a story about the meaning of life. Standing back from his war experience, Stan reflects on his ever-present faith and how it carried him through this challenging period of his life.

In The Tao of the Side Hustle, Don shares this martial arts wisdom, blends Buddhist Martial Arts stories with strategic business, tax and legal principles, and explains how anyone interested in a side hustle or small business can follow in his footsteps.

Chaplain James D. Johnson chose to accompany his men, unarmed, on their daily combat operations, a decision made against the recommendations of his superiors. During what would be the final days for some, he offered his ministry not from a pulpit but on the battlefields - in hot landing zones and rice paddies, in hospitals, aboard ship, and knee-deep in mud. Through his compelling narration, he takes us into the hearts of frightened young boys and the minds of experienced men.

Published for the first time in the United States, Combat Diary is the war story of Dog Battery, also known US Army Gun Battalion D. Originally only published in Germany in 1945, it tells the tale of 150 US soldiers as they arrive in England in July of 1944. The battalion arrives on the beaches of Normandy, fights through France—and ultimately into Germany—at the time of the fall of the Nazi regime. It is an intimate account of the actions and endurance of the soldiers over those seven months.

Ma vie a basculé une nuit où tout semblait pourtant si calme. La bête s’est glissée dans mon corps et ne m’a plus laissé une journée de répit. Il a fallu attendre des années pour, qu’enfin, on puisse poser un nom sur cette pathologie : l’algie vasculaire de la face. Les médecins la surnomment « la maladie du suicide » et comparent l’intensité de sa douleur à une amputation sans anesthésie. Ne pouvant me résoudre à vivre avec cette douleur insoutenable, j’ai tout essayé, faisant souvent même office de cobaye.

"Irish" Micky Ward grew up in the 1970s and ’80s as a tough kid from Lowell, Massachusetts - a town where boxers were once bred as a means of survival. A hard worker who overcame bad luck, bad management, and chronic pain in his hands, he avoided the pitfall of poverty and dead-end work that plagued Lowell to become a Golden Gloves junior welterweight. Ward participated in street fights from an early age and was forever known by his opponents and spectators as the underdog.

Muhammad Ali, in the late 1960s, was young, successful, brash, and hugely admired - but with some reservations. He was bombastic and cocky in a way that captured the imagination of America but also drew its detractors. He was a bold young African American in an era when few people were as outspoken. He renounced his name - Cassius Clay - as being his 'slave name' and joined the Nation of Islam, renaming himself Muhammad Ali. And finally, in 1966, after being drafted, he refused to join the military for religious and conscientious reasons.

Many regard Muhammad Ali simply as 'The Greatest' heavyweight of all time. Others admire his battles against racial injustice and religious intolerance. A few just call him 'Dad'. They are all here in this book - 50 men and women of note coming together to celebrate the man Sports Illustrated crowned 'Sportsman of the Century': Angelo Dundee, Ali's trainer; Billy Crystal, actor; Sir Henry Cooper, former British and European heavyweight champion; Bert Sugar, journalist and boxing historian; and more.