Veteran Memoir

With a single daring leap from an Italian train carrying prisoners of war, John Miller jumped out of the war of soldiers and into the war as lived by Italian civilians - many of whom risked their lives to help him. The year was 1943 and Captain Miller had been in captivity for over a year. Italian anti-fascists harboured and fed him, first in a remote mountain village, then in Rome itself.

Combat Talons in Vietnam is a personal account of the first use of C-130s in the Vietnam War. One night, John Gargus, a mission planner, oversaw an operation in which the aircraft - carrying 11 crew members - failed to return from a nighttime mission. For 30 years, a search for the missing aircraft remained in progress. When wartime mission records were declassified, Gargus embarked on a long journey of inquiry, research, and puzzle-solving to reconstruct the events of that mission and the fate of its crew.

Sgt. Steve Maharidge, like many of his generation, hardly ever talked about the war. The only sign he'd served in it was a single black and white photograph of himself and another soldier tacked to the wall of his basement workshop. After Steve Maharidge's death, his son Dale, now an adult, began a 12-year quest to understand his father's preoccupation with the photo. What had happened during the battle for Okinawa, and why had his father remained silent about his experiences and the man in the picture, Herman Mulligan? In his search for answers, Maharidge sought out the survivors of Love Company.

Warren Robinson planned to go to law school after completing his undergraduate degree. He saw a career in law as a chance to leave his small hometown for a new life in the big city. In another time, Robinson might have achieved his goal, but the year was 1967, and the Vietnam War was reaching its bloody height. Knowing he would be drafted if he went ahead with his plans, Robinson asked for his name to be put at the top of his community's selective service list.

Ed Gaydos was not a hero. Shipped off to Vietnam in 1970, he did not capture a single enemy soldier or single-handedly dismantle the Ho Chi Minh trail. He sat on a remote patch of sand behind barbed wire with a bunch of teenagers, dodging incoming mortars, battling insects and holding back an avalanche of paperwork. This hilarious, intelligent memoir of the regular soldiers of the Vietnam War will leave readers of all types hungry for the next story. With an unflinching eye for detail that spares no one, even himself, Ed Gaydos reveals his personal struggles to make sense of the war. He ...

Codenamed Operation Telic, the British component of the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was the largest gathering of British troops since the Second World War. While the British public prepared for the worst as its soldiers were facing weapons of mass destruction, most servicemen and women were under no illusion that they were invading Iraq to rid the people of Saddam Hussein.

Barnes's extremely frank and highly detailed memoir is a fast-paced tale of courage, loss, and eventual redemption that feels like someone telling you their story across the kitchen table. Above all else, this book tells the unvarnished truth of the modern-day veteran experience from a senior non-commissioned officer's point of view.

A classic of WWII, this is the vivid memoir of Private Bowlby, who came through the North Africa campaign only to have to battle in bitter fighting against a stubborn and skilled German defence in Italy. It is a truly authentic account of what it was like to fight your way through one of the most gruelling and dangerous campaigns of the Second World War, where so often the hunters became the hunted.

This is the true account of one Black female veteran's experience in the military during the Viet Nam War to this present day and how she won over fear, intimidation, rejection during and after her military service. It took her many decades to write the book, because she wanted the book to be a blessing to many people, male and female, who have served their country and not been recognized.

Author Kyle Cozad, retired US Navy Rear Admiral and current president and CEO of the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation, tells his own personal story following a service-related spinal cord injury while he was on active duty. Insightful, honest, and frank, his account describes how he bounced back from a debilitating spinal cord injury with one overarching motivation: to "give back" and make a positive difference for others.

On the centenary of the Great War, there are now no longer any veterans alive of the six million men who served on the Western Front. Although this means that the Great War as a living history is to all intents and purposes over, the twenty years Richard van Emden spent interviewing and carefully recording the memories of over 270 veterans, makes this extraordinary collection of stories even more poignant.

The British and American bomber crews of the Second World War often had to endure the most terrifying conditions. Not for them the glorious, all-or-nothing exhilaration of the Battle of Britain pilots—rather, the slow dwindling of courage as mission followed mission, the long freezing, ear-shattering journey to the target, the bursting flak, the prowling night fighters. Then, if they were lucky, the long haul home, sometimes nursing a battered, barely flyable machine, often perilously short of fuel.

Seriously Not All Right is a memoir that provides a unique perspective of a professional military officer and diplomat who suffered (and continues to suffer) from PTSD. His story, and that of his recovery and his newfound role as founder and teacher of the Veterans Writing Project, is an inspiration and a sobering reminder of the cost of all wars, particularly those that appeared in the media and to the general public as merely sidelines in the unfolding drama of world events.

A true story that pulls at your heartstrings and stays with you as it leaves its mark!This powerful and touching story provides a picture of family life when a parent is in the military. It's a true story that gives children comfort in realizing they are not alone as they struggle with their emotions. Hopefully, the story will guide parents and children to talk openly about difficult situations. Every military family will feel a connection, and smile at the discovery that with discussion comes healing. It is all about the love that brings us together. Carolyn Watkins' books build confidence...

Formed at Camp Breckenridge, the 95th Evac arrived in Casablanca in April 1943, with 7,000 troops, 30 doctors, and 40 nurses. Hospital at War is the story of the 95th Evac Hospital as told by Zachary Friedenberg, a young surgeon at the time, fresh out of his internship. He tells the story of how the men and women of the 95th survived the war. He describes how they solved problems and learned to treat the war-wounded in the extreme heat of North Africa and during the frigid winters of the Rhineland.

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.

On a tenebrous winter morning in Denver, Colorado, Leo Jenkins felt the weight of the world crushing him. Leo has a decision to make - maintain a comfortable position in a career he's no longer passionate about - or take a massive leap of faith. Giving up everything he's ever known, Jenkins sells his business, purges every possession that won't fit into a single backpack, and sets off into the world in pursuit of answers.

They put a price on his head. They did everything they could to disrupt his mission. Finally, when an antitank mine tore off his right foot, the warriors of jihad in Iraq thought they had neutralized one of their most resourceful, determined foes.

From his phenomenal memory, George O. Hallman, Ph.D., describes in fascinating detail what it was like to grow up as a member of the Silent Generation and how a tragic accident on a U.S. Air Force base in Korea led to the loss of his eyesight and the gain of his cherished wife Eileen. With Eileen’s sacrificial support, George became a beloved psychology professor and an extreme marathon runner. George and Eileen raised two sons together and enjoyed a long, happy marriage.

In late 1969, 20-year-old Robert Sweatmon received a letter informing him that he had 10 days to report to the United States Army. Like thousands of others, he had been drafted. Assigned as a rifleman with a mechanized unit, the author began a year-long odyssey in the Southeast Asian wilderness that would change his and his fellow soldiers’ lives forever. Coming of age in the maelstrom of civil rights and the free love culture, the author and his fellow soldiers saw their idealism quickly vaporize in the face of the grim realities of war.