The Stick Soldiers

The Stick Soldiers PDF Author: Hugh Martin
Publisher: BOA Editions, Ltd.
ISBN: 193816007X
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 109

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Book Description
At age nineteen, Hugh Martin withdrew from college for deployment to Iraq. After training at Fort Bragg, Martin spent 2004 in Iraq as the driver of his platoon sergeant's Humvee. He participated in hundreds of missions including raids, conducting foot patrols, clearing routes for IEDs, disposing of unexploded ordnance, and searching thousands of Iraqi vehicles. These poems recount his time in basic training, his preparation for Iraq, his experience withdrawing from school, and ultimately, the final journey to Iraq and back home to Ohio. Hugh Martin holds an MFA from Arizona State University. He is a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University.

The Stick Soldiers

The Stick Soldiers PDF Author: Hugh Martin
Publisher: BOA Editions, Ltd.
ISBN: 193816007X
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 109

Get Book Here

Book Description
At age nineteen, Hugh Martin withdrew from college for deployment to Iraq. After training at Fort Bragg, Martin spent 2004 in Iraq as the driver of his platoon sergeant's Humvee. He participated in hundreds of missions including raids, conducting foot patrols, clearing routes for IEDs, disposing of unexploded ordnance, and searching thousands of Iraqi vehicles. These poems recount his time in basic training, his preparation for Iraq, his experience withdrawing from school, and ultimately, the final journey to Iraq and back home to Ohio. Hugh Martin holds an MFA from Arizona State University. He is a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University.

Here, Bullet

Here, Bullet PDF Author: Brian Turner
Publisher: Alice James Books
ISBN: 1938584147
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 86

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Book Description
A first-person account of the Iraq War by a solider-poet, winner of the 2005 Beatrice Hawley Award. Adding his voice to the current debate about the US occupation of Iraq, in poems written in the tradition of such poets as Wilfred Owen, Yusef Komunyakaa (Dien Cai Dau), Bruce Weigl (Song of Napalm) and Alice James’ own Doug Anderson (The Moon Reflected Fire), Iraqi war veteran Brian Turner writes power-fully affecting poetry of witness, exceptional for its beauty, honesty, and skill. Based on Turner’s yearlong tour in Iraq as an infantry team leader, the poems offer gracefully rendered, unflinching description but, remarkably, leave the reader to draw conclusions or moral lessons. Here, Bullet is a must-read for anyone who cares about the war, regardless of political affiliation.

The Big Stick

The Big Stick PDF Author: Eliot A. Cohen
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465096573
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
"Speak softly and carry a big stick" Theodore Roosevelt famously said in 1901, when the United States was emerging as a great power. It was the right sentiment, perhaps, in an age of imperial rivalry but today many Americans doubt the utility of their global military presence, thinking it outdated, unnecessary or even dangerous. In The Big Stick, Eliot A. Cohen-a scholar and practitioner of international relations-disagrees. He argues that hard power remains essential for American foreign policy. While acknowledging that the US must be careful about why, when, and how it uses force, he insists that its international role is as critical as ever, and armed force is vital to that role. Cohen explains that American leaders must learn to use hard power in new ways and for new circumstances. The rise of a well-armed China, Russia's conquest of Crimea and eastern Ukraine, nuclear threats from North Korea and Iran, and the spread of radical Islamist movements like ISIS are some of the key threats to global peace. If the United States relinquishes its position as a strong but prudent military power, and fails to accept its role as the guardian of a stable world order we run the risk of unleashing disorder, violence and tyranny on a scale not seen since the 1930s. The US is still, as Madeleine Albright once dubbed it, "the indispensable nation."

Citizens and Soldiers

Citizens and Soldiers PDF Author: Eliot A. Cohen
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 150173377X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
Why has the United States, unlike every other 20th-century world power, failed to settle on a durable system of military service? In this lucid book, Eliot Cohen studies the enduring problems of America's methods of raising an army.

Supreme Command

Supreme Command PDF Author: Eliot A. Cohen
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 074324222X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
“An excellent, vividly written” (The Washington Post) account of leadership in wartime that explores how four great democratic statesmen—Abraham Lincoln, Georges Clemenceau, Winston Churchill, and David Ben-Gurion—worked with the military leaders who served them during warfare. The relationship between military leaders and political leaders has always been a complicated one, especially in times of war. When the chips are down, who should run the show—the politicians or the generals? In Supreme Command, Eliot A. Cohen expertly argues that great statesmen do not turn their wars over to their generals, and then stay out of their way. Great statesmen make better generals of their generals. They question and drive their military men, and at key times they overrule their advice. The generals may think they know how to win, but the statesmen are the ones who see the big picture. Abraham Lincoln, Georges Clemenceau, Winston Churchill, and David Ben-Gurion led four very different kinds of democracy, under the most difficult circumstances imaginable. They came from four very different backgrounds—backwoods lawyer, dueling French doctor, rogue aristocrat, and impoverished Jewish socialist. Yet they faced similar challenges. Each exhibited mastery of detail and fascination with technology. All four were great learners, who studied war as if it were their own profession, and in many ways mastered it as well as did their generals. All found themselves locked in conflict with military men. All four triumphed. The powerful lessons of this “brilliant” (National Review) book will touch and inspire anyone who faces intense adversity and is the perfect gift for history buffs of all backgrounds.

Stand Down

Stand Down PDF Author: James Hasson
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1621579190
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
"James is a terrific reporter, and this account of the effort to shape our military to reflect left-wing social values rather than the priorities of readiness and capability is vital." —BEN SHAPIRO, bestselling author of The Right Side of History and host of The Ben Shapiro Show "Stand Down is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand how progressives have forced radical changes on our military—no matter how much harm it does to combat readiness." — MOLLIE HEMINGWAY, bestselling coauthor of Justice on Trial "Stand Down exposes one of the greatest but least-discussed scandals of our era. Time and time again, the Obama administration undermined the military to advance left-wing political goals — and Hasson brings the goods to prove it. Every patriotic American who cares about the military needs to read this book." — BUCK SEXTON, Former CIA Counterterrorism Officer, Host of The Buck Sexton Show "James Hasson makes a powerful and convincing case in this exceptionally well-written book. Stand Down is a scathing indictment of the Obama administration’s misuse of the military as a vehicle for progressive social change at the expense of men and women in uniform." —SEAN PARNELL, Army combat veteran and New York Times bestselling author of Outlaw Platoon “Safe space” stickers on office doors at the Naval Academy. Officers apologizing for “microaggressions” against Air Force cadets. An Army “gender integration study” urging an end to “hyper-masculinity” in combat-arms units. Power Point presentations teaching commanders about “male pregnancy.” A cover-up, as senior officials placed their thumbs on the scales to ensure the success of the first female candidates at the Army’s legendary Ranger School. These are just a few of the examples documented in this explosive book, Stand Down: How Social Justice Warriors are Sabotaging the U.S. Military by former Army Captain, Afghanistan veteran, and attorney James Hasson. Hasson exposes the relentless campaign by powerful Obama administration ideologues to remake the culture and policies of the U.S. military, even over the explicit objections of military leaders. He presents evidence—drawn from government documents and exclusive interviews with more than forty sources, including high-ranking officers and Pentagon insiders—that progressive activists in the Obama Administration used the U.S. Military as their preferred vehicle to advance the progressive agenda. The stories paint a troubling picture of what happens when leftwing political operatives impose a political agenda on our nation’s military: they render our forces less effective, place our military men and women in greater danger, and compromise the military’s sole objective: to protect America by winning the nation’s wars. “Military readiness” is a term politicians and pundits often use in the abstract to describe our military’s ability to defeat its adversaries. But it ultimately describes how well we have prepared and equipped a young soldier or sailor to prevail over an enemy determined to do them harm. Hasson makes a compelling case that our nation has a moral obligation to ensure that the sons and daughters it sends to war have the best possible chance of victory—which means we must embrace only the policies that help us win wars and reject those that don’t. Political agendas of any kind invite corruption, jeopardize lives, and undermine the mission. They have no place in military policy—a principle that the Obama administration either disdained or failed to understand.

The Hell of War Comes Home

The Hell of War Comes Home PDF Author: Owen W. Gilman Jr.
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1496815793
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
Owen W. Gilman Jr. stresses the US experience of war in the twenty-first century and argues that wherever and whenever there is war, there will be imaginative responses to it, especially the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Since the trauma of September 11, the experience of Americans at war has been rendered honestly and fully in a wide range of texts--creative nonfiction and journalism, film, poetry, and fiction. These responses, Gilman contends, have packed a lot of power and measure up even to World War II's literature and film. Like few other books, Gilman's volume studies these new texts-- among them Kevin Powers's debut novel The Yellow Birds and Phil Klay's short stories Redeployment, along with the films The Hurt Locker, American Sniper, and Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk. For perspective, Gilman also looks at some touchstones from the Vietnam War. Compared to a few of the big Vietnam books and films, this new material has mostly been read and watched by small audiences and generated less discussion. Gilman exposes the circumstances in American culture currently preventing literature and film of our recent wars from making a significant impact. He contends that Americans' inclination to demand distraction limits learning from these compelling responses to war in the past decade. According to Gilman, where there should be clarity and depth of knowledge, we instead face misunderstanding and the anguish endured by veterans betrayed by war and our lack of understanding.

Citizen Soldiers

Citizen Soldiers PDF Author: Stephen E. Ambrose
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476740259
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 528

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Book Description
From Stephen E. Ambrose, bestselling author of Band of Brothers and D-Day, the inspiring story of the ordinary men of the U.S. army in northwest Europe from the day after D-Day until the end of the bitterest days of World War II. In this riveting account, historian Stephen E. Ambrose continues where he left off in his #1 bestseller D-Day. Citizen Soldiers opens at 0001 hours, June 7, 1944, on the Normandy beaches, and ends at 0245 hours, May 7, 1945, with the allied victory. It is biography of the US Army in the European Theater of Operations, and Ambrose again follows the individual characters of this noble, brutal, and tragic war. From the high command down to the ordinary soldier, Ambrose draws on hundreds of interviews to re-create the war experience with startling clarity and immediacy. From the hedgerows of Normandy to the overrunning of Germany, Ambrose tells the real story of World War II from the perspective of the men and women who fought it.

Waging War on Trial

Waging War on Trial PDF Author: Brian R. Dirck
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 157607949X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
A thought-provoking and engaging guide to the legal, moral, and political issues that arise when the United States goes to war. From the American Revolution to the Bush administration's new type of war on terror, Waging War on Trial views warfare from a legal, social, cultural, and political standpoint. Included are homefront debates during major hostilities, "brushfire" incidents, and how the events of September 11th have shaped our domestic wartime policy. The battle continues today as the President and Congress debate over who begins and ends military operations. Concerns about civil liberties, the draft, and internal security are as relevant today as during the Civil War. Questions arise on how dissenters and minorities are treated and if America can legally control the behavior of our soldiers. It's an intricate interplay between war and America's institutions.

Special Forces

Special Forces PDF Author: Tom Clancy
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101127422
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
They are sent to the world's hot spots-on covert missions fraught with danger. They are called on to perform at the peak of their physical and mental capabilities, primed for combat and surveillance, yet ready to pitch in with disaster relief operations. They are the Army's Special Forces Groups. Now follow Tom Clancy as he delves into the training and tools, missions and mindset of these elite operatives. Special Forces includes: The making of Special Forces personnel: recruitment and training A rare look at actual Special Forces Group deployment Exercises Tools of the trade: weapons, communications and sensor equipment, survival gear Roles and missions: a mini-novel illustrates a probable scenario of Special Forces intervention Exclusive photographs, illustrations and diagrams Plus: an interview with General Hugh Shelton, USA, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (and the former Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Special Operations Command-USSOCOM)