Military Combat

In the grand tradition of John Keegan's enduring classic The Face of Battle comes a searing, unforgettable chronicle of war through the eyes of the American soldiers who fought in three of our most iconic battles: Bunker Hill, Gettysburg, and Iwo Jima. This is not a book about how great generals won their battles, nor is it a study in grand strategy. Men of War is instead a riveting, visceral, and astonishingly original look at ordinary soldiers under fire.

It was the bloodiest battle in Marine Corps history, claiming a third of all marines killed in World War II. The relentless fighting on Iwo Jima lasted for 36 days, but most of us only know the iconic photo of five soldiers raising the American flag on Mount Surabachi. For Fred Haynes, a young captain in Combat Team 28, Surabachi was one marker in a ferocious blood-letting against an enemy of 22,000 warriors who were dug into caves and tunnels.

Among them was green young Lieutenant Pat Caruso who became de facto company commander when the five officers ranking him were killed or wounded. He led his rapidly diminishing force steadily forward for the next few days, when a day's gains were measured in yards. Caruso was eventually wounded himself and was evacuated. Realizing that the heroism of his comrades would be lost by the decimation of his unit, Caruso latched onto any paper he could find and filled every blank space with his memory of the fighting.

A factual novel of combat, disease, corruption, and survival. Little is written about 1970–1972 Vietnam. The country lost interest, and apathy replaced anti-war sentiment now that the US was rapidly withdrawing troops.

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.

The remarkable true story of a group of former Special Operation soldiers turned entrepreneurs on a mission to end the war in Afghanistan with business, not bullets.

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.

U.S. Army Captain Kimberly N. Hampton was living her dream: flying armed helicopters in combat and commanding D Troop, 1st Squadron, 17th Cavalry, the armed reconnaissance aviation squadron of the 82nd Airborne Division. On January 2, 2004, Captain Hampton was flying an OH-58D Kiowa Warrior helicopter above Fallujah, Iraq, in support of a raid on an illicit weapons marketplace, searching for an illusive sniper on the rooftops of the city. A little past noon her helicopter was wracked by an explosion....

On August 18, 1945, US Army Sergeant Anthony J. Marchione bled to death in the clear, bright sky above Tokyo. Marchione, a gunner in the US Air Force, died, like so many before him in World War II, quietly, cradled in the arms of a buddy. Though tragic, Marchione's death would have been no more notable than any other had he not had the dubious distinction of being the last American killed in World War II combat.

Women are officially barred from combat in the American armed services, yet in today’s wars, where there are no front lines, the ban on combat is virtually meaningless. More than in any previous conflict in our history, American women are engaging with the enemy, suffering injuries, and even sacrificing their lives in the line of duty. When Janey Comes Marching Home juxtaposes forty-eight photographs by Sascha Pflaeging with oral histories collected by Laura Browder to provide a dramatic portrait of women at war.

May 6, 1986: Nick Popaditch arrives at the Receiving Barracks, Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego, California. April 9, 2003: An AP photographer captures a striking image seen around the world of the Gunny Sergeant smoking a victory cigar in his tank, the haunting statue of Saddam Hussein hovering in the background. Popaditch is immortalized forever as "The Cigar Marine."

Nothing in American history has ever equaled the death and destruction of the intense and bloody warfare of 1861-1865 between Americans. For later generations, such a horror must have the comfort of a moral justification. The war must have been a noble and necessary crusade carried out against evil people who refused to give up their slaves. But is this true? Did those men in blue really sacrifice their lives for the freedom and equality of Black Americans? Did those men in gray give their lives so that some could continue to hold Black Americans in slavery?

The Invasion of Okinawa was one of the bloodiest battles in the Pacific Theatre, and Roy Wilkes, USMC, was unfortunate enough to have a front-row seat. True, gripping stories of being a scared 17-year-old Combat Marine trying to stay alive behind enemy lines. He witnessed 23 of his friends die in a bombing. True, gripping stories and pictures reveal the mind, heart, and soul of a fighting WWII Marine. This fascinating book is also a perfect history lesson for war buffs and students since it covers all aspects of the Battle of Okinawa: Mental, emotional, historical, and personal.

Mark chose to enlist in the Air Force as a Special Operations Combat Controller after he received his Bachelor’s degree from The University of Alabama. Because of his above average grades and near-photographic memory, his Business Finance degree would have done him well. But, he felt a higher calling; one that put him between us and the enemies bent on our destruction.

In this searing, inspiring memoir, Black recounts how he devoted himself, body and soul, to his proud service as an elite US Army Ranger in Korea and Vietnam - and what those years have taught him about himself, his country, and our future. Written with extraordinary candor and passion, A Ranger Born is the memoir of a man who dedicated the best of his life to everything that is great and enduring about America.

Not only was the Stonewall Brigade present at most of the major engagements in the Eastern theater, more often than not, they were positioned at the edge of the front line of battle. It can be fairly stated that while these men may not have been more heroic or courageous than any other soldiers who fought in the Civil War, they appeared in the first wave of volunteers immediately after Virginia announced secession, were better trained, were more skillfully directed, and showed greater dedication to the cause and their leader than most regiments on either side of the conflict.

Like lethal insects undergoing a series of metamorphoses into ever more mature and dangerous forms, military aircraft moved rapidly from stage to stage of their development as the 20th century progressed. The catalyst of war provided the swiftest impetus to this evolution. The new mechanized armies existing from the later period of World War I onward seized on the fresh technology and sought to squeeze every possible drop of advantage from it that the limits of science and the era's materials would allow.

Post-World War II America and teenage boys dreamed of adventure growing up in the 1950s, listened to Elvis Presley and read Jack Kerouac, yet it wasn't cruising Route 66 in a Corvette that united them, but Highway 1, known as the Street Without Joy, on the way to Hue city during the 1968 Tet Offensive in Vietnam. It was the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, Civil Rights and the pill, young girls in long boots and short skirts, but not for those in the jungle and rice paddies of Southeast Asia.

The men who served with in the 1st Infantry Division with F company, 52nd Infantry (LRP), later redesignated as Company I, 75th Infantry (Ranger), engaged in some of the fiercest, bloodiest fighting during the Vietnam War, suffering a greater relative aggregate of casualties that any other LRRP/LRP/ Ranger company. Their base was Lai Khe, within hailing distance of the Vietcong central headquarters, a mile inside Cambodia, with its vast stockpiles of weapons and thousands of transient VC and NVA soldiers. Recondo-qualified Bill Goshen was there.

The first aircraft to appear in the skies over the battlefields of World War I showed few signs of the dominant future of airplanes in warfare. Small, fragile, and slow, they provided no hint of the sleek jet fighters that would one day slash across the skies of Earth faster than sound to unleash the lethal blast and fire of sophisticated missiles, or the bombers able to level an entire city with one nuclear bomb. That said, they did not represent a complete novelty in warfare either, at least not during the early months of World War I.