Military Combat

James Webb, author of Fields of Fire, the classic novel of the Vietnam War - and a former U.S. Senator; Secretary of the Navy; recipient of the Navy Cross, Silver Star and Purple Heart as a combat Marine; and a self-described "military brat" - has written an extraordinary memoir of his early years, "a love story - love of family, love of country, love of service" in his words.

A reconnaissance man and sniper, John Lewis Barkley served in Company K of the Fourth Infantry Regiment, a unit that participated in almost every major American battle. The York-like episode that earned Barkley his Congressional Medal of Honor occurred on October 7, 1918, when he climbed into an abandoned French tank and singlehandedly held off an advancing German force, killing hundreds of enemy soldiers.

From April to November 1918, the American Air Service grew from a poorly equipped, unorganized branch of the U.S. Expeditionary Forces to a fighting unit equal to its opponent in every way. Hostile Skies details the actual battle experiences of the men and boys who made up the service squadrons at the front - Raoul Lufbery, Elliot Springs, Fiorello La Guardia, and, of course, Eddie Rickenbacker.

Colonel Yuri Andrenev, a respected test pilot, is trusted to evaluate the latest Soviet fighter, the Sukhoi Su27 "Flanker", from a secret test facility near Moscow. Surely he is above suspicion. With thoughts of defection in his mind, and flying close to the inner German border, could he be tempted to make a daring escape across the most heavily defended airspace in the world?

The remaining US aviation forces, along with the US Air Force and US Navy and Marine aviation assets, would not be easily removed from the battle. For the US forces still in-country, this is an untold story of heroism, dedication, and refusal to yield the battlefield despite being largely considered by US political leaders as "expendable."

After serving in a scout-sniper platoon in Mosul, Tom Voss came home carrying invisible wounds of war - the memory of doing or witnessing things that went against his fundamental beliefs. This was not a physical injury that could heal with medication and time but a "moral injury" - a wound to the soul that eventually urged him toward suicide. Desperate for relief from the pain and guilt, Voss embarked on a 2,700-mile journey across America with a fellow veteran. Listeners walk with these men as they meet other veterans, Native American healers, and spiritual teachers.

Written with award-winning author Steven Weingartner, Faithful Warriors chronicles Dean Ladd's experiences as a junior officer in some of the fiercest fighting of the war in the Pacific. His recollections and descriptions of life - and death - on the far-flung island battlefronts of the Pacific War are vividly rendered, augmented by the recollections of a number of the men with whom he served. This memoir tells the story of how both Ladd and the Marine Corps came of age during history's greatest military conflict.

A NATO reinforcement exercise held at a British airbase in West Germany brings British, American, and French fighter crews together to practice the air corridor policing mission. When a Pembroke transport aircraft engaged in a covert reconnaissance mission is intercepted by a MiG fighter and forced to land in East Germany, events escalate. Will the crew become a pawn in the relentless confrontation as the Soviets increase the rhetoric?

For soldiers in the 101st Airborne Division, the road to Baghdad began with a midnight flight out of Fort Campbell, Kentucky, in late February 2003. For Rick Atkinson, who would spend nearly two months covering the division for The Washington Post, the war in Iraq provided a unique opportunity to observe today's U.S. Army in combat.

Previous books have promised to describe the combat experience of the World War II GI, but there has never been a book like Patrick O'Donnell's Beyond Valor. Here is the first combat history of the war in Europe in the words of the men themselves, and perhaps the most honest and brutal account of combat possible.

Battle fatigue...shell shock...PTSD... terminology changes. The pain remains. Paul Eastman, a small-town Wisconsin boy turned P-40 fighter pilot, lands in the jungles of Assam and Burma in 1943. Lt. Eastman's compelling story, gleaned from his diary and letters home and illustrated with his personal photos, provides unique insights into the realities of combat life and death, punctuated by love and concern for the wife he left behind.

Not everyone has pulled shards of another man's skull from the palm of their hand. Not everyone has stood over the bodies of friends whose lives were lost in an instant. Not everyone has struggled to face their own reflection for years on end. But anyone who has experienced trauma or adversity will resonate with Legion Rising, the unflinchingly honest account of an army officer's journey through combat in the Iraq War and rising beyond the scars that trauma leaves behind.

From Major General Jeffrey Schloesser - former commanding general of the 101st Airborne Division and Regional Command-East - comes a revealing memoir of leadership in the chaos and fog of the Afghanistan War.

Success in war ultimately depends on the consolidation of political order. Nadia Schadlow argues that the steps needed to consolidate a new political order are not separate from war. They are instead an essential component of war and victory.

Echo Among Warriors is a story of close combat between two opposing, equally committed adversaries. The powerful narrative immerses the listener in both sides of the battle, playing and replaying the same battle sequence from alternating viewpoints—through the eyes of the Marines and through the eyes of the North Vietnamese. The bullet fired from a Marine's M-16 at a silhouetted enemy solider will in the next chapter tear into the flesh of that crouched NVA trooper. The story represents just one of perhaps thousands of deadly encounters that reflect the reality of battle.

After the Citadel and Officer Candidate School, Andrew Z. Adkins Jr. was sent to the 80th Infantry Division, then training in the California-Arizona desert. There, he was assigned as an 81mm mortar section leader in Company H, 2nd Battalion, 317th Infantry Regiment. Lieutenant Adkins and his fellow soldiers took part in light hedgerow fighting that served to shake the division down and familiarize the troops and their officers with combat.

In 1993, U.S. women earned the right to fly in combat, but the full story of how it happened is largely unknown. The Fly Girls Revolt chronicles the actions of a band of women who overcame decades of discrimination and prevailed against bureaucrats, chauvinists, anti-feminists, and even other military women. Drawing on extensive research, interviews with women who served in the 1970s and 1980s, and her personal experiences in the Air Force, Eileen Bjorkman weaves together a tale of the women who fought for the right to enter combat and be treated as equal partners in the U.S. military.

Everett Ross often feels like a fish out of water, an ex-Texas Ranger who traded his horse and six-gun for the cockpit of a pursuit aircraft in the British Royal Flying Corps. Through his inimitable West Texas narrative, Ross thrills the reader with a riveting tale of authentic aerial combat in the skies above the stalemated trenches of World War I.

James A. Warren's battle-driven history shows how this elite culture has produced the best warriors in the country, through six decades, several open wars, and many smaller interventions. From their heroic performance in the Pacific War, against Japanese troops on god-forsaken islands, to their "tip-of-the-lance" leadership in key operations in the two Gulf Wars, the Marines have proven again and again that elite men with elite training are worth entire armies.

In this book, you will find my story as a kid from Iowa who joined the military and rose to the senior most enlisted position in the entire US Armed Forces, the Senior Enlisted Advisor to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (SEAC) through an almost 38-year career. I discuss key issues of living this warrior life including leadership, combat, PTSD, resilience in the face of adversity, and the importance of family.