Military Personal Memoir

There are times when life feels like it has you cornered: financial difficulties, relationship issues, work problems, all of the above. Every one of us, at one time or another, will have to face up to the challenges that come our way. And there are two ways of meeting them: negatively, where blame is the answer, where other people are at fault, where you haven’t been treated fairly. Or positively, where you own the situation, learn and grow from it and become a better person at the end of it.

In his own captivating words, General Ulysses S. Grant describes the Wilderness Campaign, the almost anti-climactic surrender of General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox, and the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. His depiction of the most crucial and hardest-fought battles of the Civil War, the near-disasters, and the bloody triumphs reveals a highly intelligent, profound, thinking man. Grant wrote his memoirs as he lay dying of cancer and completed the manuscript only a week before his death.

In the wake of her mother's death, Jessica Pearce Rotondi uncovers boxes of letters, declassified CIA reports, and newspaper clippings that bring to light a family ghost: her uncle Jack, who disappeared during the CIA-led "Secret War" in Laos in 1972. The letters lead her across Southeast Asia in search of the truth that has eluded her family for decades. On the night of March 29, 1972, Jack's plane vanishes over the mountains bordering Vietnam. The crash eerily echoes the one Jack's father, Ed Pearce, survived in World War II, when Ed parachuted out of the plane before being captured.

You Are Worth It is a memoir about the War in Afghanistan and Kyle’s heroics, yes, but it also is a manual for living. Organized around the credos that have guided Kyle’s life (from “Don’t Hide Your Scars” to “Call Your Mom”), the book encourages us to become our best selves in the time we've been given on earth.

In 2003, already an older father, National Book Award–winning novelist Tim O’Brien resolved to give his young sons what he wished his own father had given to him—a few scraps of paper signed “Love, Dad.” Maybe a word of advice. Maybe a sentence or two about some long-ago Christmas Eve. Maybe some scattered glimpses of their rapidly aging father, a man they might never really know. For the next fifteen years, the author talked to his sons on paper, as if they were adults, imagining what they might want to hear from a father who was no longer among the living.

In The Double Life of Fidel Castro, one of Castro's soldiers of 17 years breaks his silence and shares his memoir of years of service, and eventual imprisonment and torture for displeasing the notorious dictator, and his dramatic escape from Cuba. Responsible for protecting the lider maximo for two decades, Juan Reinaldo Sanchez was party to his secret life - because everything around Castro was hidden.

Five-star General Dwight D. Eisenhower was arguably the single most important military figure of World War II. Crusade in Europe tells the complete story of the war as he planned and executed it. Through Eisenhower's eyes the enormous scope and drama of the war—strategy, battles, moments of great decision—become fully illuminated in all their fateful glory. Penned before his Presidency, this account is deeply human and helped propel him to the highest office.

Thousands of people have heard Kris "Tanto" Paronto speak about his experiences in Benghazi on September 11, 2012. But before he was a security contractor, Tanto was a US Army Ranger from Second Battalion 75th Ranger Regiment. Rangers are trained to lead by being pushed to their physical and mental limits so that they can perform against impossible odds in punishing situations. In The Ranger Way, Tanto shares stories from his training experiences that played a role in his team's heroic response in Benghazi.

Before Madeleine Albright turned twelve, her life was shaken by the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia—the country where she was born—the Battle of Britain, the near total destruction of European Jewry, the Allied victory in World War II, the rise of communism, and the onset of the Cold War. Albright's experiences, and those of her family, provide a lens through which to view the most tumultuous dozen years in modern history.

The Special Boat Service (SBS) has long been the forgotten sibling of British Special Forces, but no longer. Duncan Falconer's grippingly personal memoir finally lifts the lid on life, loss, training and operations in the toughest unit of them all—the SBS. From joining up as a teenager, through SBS recruitment, training, and operational detachments, First into Action takes us on a journey through the SBS's history, operations and tactics seen through the lens of Duncan Falconer's remarkable story.

Mike Hayes has lived a lifetime of once-in-a-lifetime experiences. He has been held at gunpoint and threatened with execution. He’s jumped out of a building rigged to explode, helped amputate a teammate’s leg, and made countless split-second life-and-death decisions. He’s written countless emails to his family, telling them how much he loves them, just in case those were the last words of his they’d ever read. Outside of the SEALs, he’s run meetings in the White House Situation Room, negotiated international arms treaties, and developed high-impact corporate strategies.

With four years in the Parachute Regiment, 10 years in the SAS and two Everest summits to his name, no one is better equipped than Jay Morton to reveal what it takes to become the best of the best. Soldier is Jay Morton’s masterclass in mindset, strategy and excellence. Drawing on his extraordinary personal experience, it provides in-depth, comprehensive lessons and practical takeaways.

Meet Renee and Herta, two sisters who faced the unimaginable—together. This is their true story. As Jews living in 1940s Czechoslovakia, Renee, Herta, and their parents were in immediate danger when the Holocaust came to their door. As the only hearing person in her family, Renee had to alert her parents and sister whenever the sound of Nazi boots approached their home so they could hide. But soon their parents were tragically taken away, and the two sisters went on the run, desperate to find a safe place to hide. Eventually they, too, would be taken to the concentration camp Bergen-Belsen.

OCT 7 is not only the story of one Israeli officer, but it is also the narrative of an entire nation. A nation that stepped up without a moment's hesitation to face an existential challenge with a sense of purpose and mission.

During Vietnam, the basic role of the USMC gunship squadrons was to protect the transport helicopters during medevac missions, troop insertions and extractions, resupply missions, and supporting the Marines on the ground during operations and patrols. Basically, whenever the Marines or South Vietnam friendlies got in trouble the gunships were dispatched to assist them.

Chief Warrant Officer Necole Belanger created a professional persona that was no-nonsense and highly put-together. But the truth was much more complex. Necole's story is a tale of two lives, the CWO raised in a military family, and the woman coming to terms with her sexuality, in a time where the two could not coexist. A lesbian member of the military police during the LGBTQ Purge in the Canadian Armed Forces, Necole would achieve success and promotion in her career despite a near-constant struggle. But the higher she rose in rank within the Canadian Armed Forces, the less her voice was heard.

Army leadership is a sophisticated endeavour that has kept pace with societal change and the challenges of the modern world. In the military, exceptional leadership is crucial every day. Drawing on the latest research in military history, sociology, psychology and behavioural science and with compelling illustration from British Army operations across the centuries, Lt Col Langley Sharp MBE goes beyond the latest leadership fads to distil into one peerlessly authoritative work the essence of leading and leadership from one of the world's most revered institutions.

For us, it was a literal knock, with two men standing in crisply pressed uniforms. They had news. News that gutted us to the core - the death of our loved ones, a brother and two husbands - in combat zones. The thing about those moments is that it's almost inconceivable that they can happen to you. That is, until they do.

This book is considered to be the best account of the Civil War ever written from the Confederate point of view. It is also the one most frequently cited by historians of the Western campaigns. Sam Watkins, a high private in the Army of Tennessee, brings a vividness and detail to his story unmatched in the genre.

When Lyndon Baines Johnson wanted to go somewhere, there was no stopping him. This dynamic president called for Air Force One as others summon a taxi - at a moment's notice, whatever the hour or the weather. And the man who made sure that LBJ got his ride was General James U. Cross, the president's hand-picked pilot, top military assistant, and personal confidante. The only Air Force One pilot to have a position, simultaneously, in the White House, General Cross is also the only member of LBJ's inner circle who has not publicly offered his recollections of the president. Until now.