-
Volunteers
- Growing Up in the Forever War
- Narrated by: Jerad W. Alexander
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $19.46
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
“Riveting and morally complex, Volunteers is not only an insider’s account of war. It takes you inside the increasingly closed culture that creates our warriors.”—Elliot Ackerman, author of the National Book Award finalist Dark at the Crossing
As a child, Jerad Alexander lay in bed listening to the fighter jets take off outside his window and was desperate to be airborne. As a teenager at an American base in Japan, he immersed himself in war games, war movies, and pulpy novels about Vietnam. Obsessed with all things military, he grew up playing with guns, joined the Civil Air Patrol for the uniform, and reveled in the closed and safe life “inside the castle,” within the embrace of the armed forces, the only world he knew or could imagine. Most of all, he dreamed of enlisting—like his mother, father, stepfather, and grandfather before him—and playing his part in the Great American War Story.
He joined the US Marines straight out of high school, eager for action. Once in Iraq, however, he came to realize he was fighting a lost cause, enmeshed in the ongoing War on Terror that was really just a fruitless display of American might. The myths of war, the stories of violence and masculinity and heroism, the legacy of his family—everything Alexander had planned his life around—was a mirage.
Alternating scenes from childhood with skirmishes in the Iraqi desert, this original, searing, and propulsive memoir introduces a powerful new voice in the literature of war. Jerad W. Alexander—not some elite warrior, but a simple volunteer—delivers a passionate and timely reckoning with the troubled and cyclical truths of the American war machine.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Refugee
- By: Alan Gratz
- Narrated by: Michael Goldstrom, Kyla Garcia, Assaf Cohen
- Length: 7 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This timely and powerful novel tells the story of three different children seeking refuge. Josef is a Jewish boy living in 1930s Nazi Germany. With the threat of concentration camps looming, he and his family board a ship bound for the other side of the world. Isabel is a Cuban girl in 1994. With riots and unrest plaguing her country, she and her family set out on a raft, hoping to find safety in America. Mahmoud is a Syrian boy in 2015. With his homeland torn apart by violence and destruction, he and his family begin a long trek toward Europe.
-
-
Intended for 5-8th graders, but it is good for adults too
- By LJK on 12-21-17
By: Alan Gratz
-
The Things They Carried
- By: Tim O'Brien
- Narrated by: Bryan Cranston
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hailed by The New York Times as "a marvel of storytelling", The Things They Carried’s portrayal of the boots-on-the-ground experience of soldiers in the Vietnam War is a landmark in war writing. Now, three-time Emmy Award winner-Bryan Cranston, star of the hit TV series Breaking Bad, delivers an electrifying performance that walks the book’s hallucinatory line between reality and fiction and highlights the emotional power of the spoken word.
-
-
Heavy Load
- By Mel on 10-28-13
By: Tim O'Brien
-
War Flower
- My Life After Iraq
- By: Brooke King
- Narrated by: Christine Lakin
- Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Brooke King has been asked over and over what it's like to be a woman in combat, but she knows her answer is not what the public wants to hear. The answers people seek lie in the graphic details of war - the sex, death, violence, and reality of it all as she experienced it. In her riveting memoir War Flower, King breaks her silence and reveals the truth about her experience as a soldier in Iraq.
-
-
Wow!
- By Dennis Strubhart on 02-28-20
By: Brooke King
-
A Higher Call
- An Incredible True Story of Combat and Chivalry in the War-Torn Skies of World War II
- By: Adam Makos
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 13 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Four days before Christmas in 1943, a badly damaged American bomber struggled to fly over wartime Germany. At its controls was a 21-year-old pilot. Half his crew lay wounded or dead. It was their first mission. Suddenly a sleek, dark shape pulled up on the bomber’s tail - a German Messerschmitt fighter. Worse, the German pilot was an ace, a man able to destroy the American bomber with the squeeze of a trigger.
-
-
An Absolutely Incredcredible Audiobook!
- By JerryL on 03-23-13
By: Adam Makos
-
Outlaw Platoon
- Heroes, Renegades, Infidels, and the Brotherhood of War in Afghanistan
- By: Sean Parnell, John Bruning
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At 24 years of age, U.S. Army Ranger Sean Parnell was named commander of a forty-man elite infantry platoon - a unit that came to be known as the Outlaws - and was tasked with rooting out Pakistan-based insurgents from a mountain valley along Afghanistan's eastern frontier. Parnell and his men assumed they would be facing a ragtag bunch of civilians, but in May 2006 what started out as a routine patrol through the lower mountains of the Hindu Kush became a brutal ambush.
-
-
Great book...Everyone should listen to this book!!
- By Chris on 04-09-12
By: Sean Parnell, and others
-
Freaks of a Feather
- A Marine Grunt's Memoir
- By: Kacy Tellessen
- Narrated by: Patrick Kirchner
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Kacy Tellessen is a grunt. After completing high school in rural Washington, he enlisted in the Marine Corps and began the hero's journey he imagined might parallel those epic tales he'd consumed throughout adolescence. But what Tellessen lived through—from boot camp to the battlefield and home again—had little in common with Homer's tales or Hollywood's depictions. In his memoir, Tellessen offers a truer account of life as an infantryman: the complicated, conflicting, adrenaline-pumping, and traumatic experience of war.
-
-
The full arch of the GWOT grunt experience
- By Josh C. on 04-11-22
By: Kacy Tellessen
-
Refugee
- By: Alan Gratz
- Narrated by: Michael Goldstrom, Kyla Garcia, Assaf Cohen
- Length: 7 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This timely and powerful novel tells the story of three different children seeking refuge. Josef is a Jewish boy living in 1930s Nazi Germany. With the threat of concentration camps looming, he and his family board a ship bound for the other side of the world. Isabel is a Cuban girl in 1994. With riots and unrest plaguing her country, she and her family set out on a raft, hoping to find safety in America. Mahmoud is a Syrian boy in 2015. With his homeland torn apart by violence and destruction, he and his family begin a long trek toward Europe.
-
-
Intended for 5-8th graders, but it is good for adults too
- By LJK on 12-21-17
By: Alan Gratz
-
The Things They Carried
- By: Tim O'Brien
- Narrated by: Bryan Cranston
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hailed by The New York Times as "a marvel of storytelling", The Things They Carried’s portrayal of the boots-on-the-ground experience of soldiers in the Vietnam War is a landmark in war writing. Now, three-time Emmy Award winner-Bryan Cranston, star of the hit TV series Breaking Bad, delivers an electrifying performance that walks the book’s hallucinatory line between reality and fiction and highlights the emotional power of the spoken word.
-
-
Heavy Load
- By Mel on 10-28-13
By: Tim O'Brien
-
War Flower
- My Life After Iraq
- By: Brooke King
- Narrated by: Christine Lakin
- Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Brooke King has been asked over and over what it's like to be a woman in combat, but she knows her answer is not what the public wants to hear. The answers people seek lie in the graphic details of war - the sex, death, violence, and reality of it all as she experienced it. In her riveting memoir War Flower, King breaks her silence and reveals the truth about her experience as a soldier in Iraq.
-
-
Wow!
- By Dennis Strubhart on 02-28-20
By: Brooke King
-
A Higher Call
- An Incredible True Story of Combat and Chivalry in the War-Torn Skies of World War II
- By: Adam Makos
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 13 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Four days before Christmas in 1943, a badly damaged American bomber struggled to fly over wartime Germany. At its controls was a 21-year-old pilot. Half his crew lay wounded or dead. It was their first mission. Suddenly a sleek, dark shape pulled up on the bomber’s tail - a German Messerschmitt fighter. Worse, the German pilot was an ace, a man able to destroy the American bomber with the squeeze of a trigger.
-
-
An Absolutely Incredcredible Audiobook!
- By JerryL on 03-23-13
By: Adam Makos
-
Outlaw Platoon
- Heroes, Renegades, Infidels, and the Brotherhood of War in Afghanistan
- By: Sean Parnell, John Bruning
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At 24 years of age, U.S. Army Ranger Sean Parnell was named commander of a forty-man elite infantry platoon - a unit that came to be known as the Outlaws - and was tasked with rooting out Pakistan-based insurgents from a mountain valley along Afghanistan's eastern frontier. Parnell and his men assumed they would be facing a ragtag bunch of civilians, but in May 2006 what started out as a routine patrol through the lower mountains of the Hindu Kush became a brutal ambush.
-
-
Great book...Everyone should listen to this book!!
- By Chris on 04-09-12
By: Sean Parnell, and others
-
Freaks of a Feather
- A Marine Grunt's Memoir
- By: Kacy Tellessen
- Narrated by: Patrick Kirchner
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Kacy Tellessen is a grunt. After completing high school in rural Washington, he enlisted in the Marine Corps and began the hero's journey he imagined might parallel those epic tales he'd consumed throughout adolescence. But what Tellessen lived through—from boot camp to the battlefield and home again—had little in common with Homer's tales or Hollywood's depictions. In his memoir, Tellessen offers a truer account of life as an infantryman: the complicated, conflicting, adrenaline-pumping, and traumatic experience of war.
-
-
The full arch of the GWOT grunt experience
- By Josh C. on 04-11-22
By: Kacy Tellessen
-
The Faithful Spy
- By: Alex Berenson
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
John Wells is the only American CIA agent ever to penetrate al Qaeda. Since before the attacks in 2001, Wells has been hiding in the mountains of Pakistan, biding his time, building his cover.
-
-
Faithful Spy
- By Margaret on 12-14-09
By: Alex Berenson
-
Black Autumn
- A Post-Apocalyptic Saga
- By: Jeff Kirkham, Jason Ross
- Narrated by: Ragnar Tellevson
- Length: 14 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A rogue Russian nuke sails toward the harbors of Los Angeles in the hull of a ramshackle sailboat. Without destroying a single building, the bomb shatters the latticework of the American dream, toppling one piece of the economy after another. A group of Special Forces veterans and their prepper friends scramble for survival in a worldwide catastrophe so psychologically disruptive they are left questioning everything they ever believed to be true.
-
-
Can't get through it
- By Semicraftsman on 02-15-19
By: Jeff Kirkham, and others
-
WAR
- By: Sebastian Junger
- Narrated by: Sebastian Junger
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Junger turns his brilliant and empathetic eye to the reality of combat - the fear, the honor, and the trust among men in an extreme situation whose survival depends on their absolute commitment to one another. His on-the-ground account follows a single platoon through a 15-month tour of duty in the most dangerous outpost in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley.
-
-
Why we fight re-visited
- By J on 09-20-10
By: Sebastian Junger
-
Shade it Black
- Death and After in Iraq
- By: Jessica Goodell, John Hearn
- Narrated by: Emily Durante
- Length: 5 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jess enlisted in the Marines immediately after graduating from high school in 2001, and in 2004 she volunteered to serve in the Marine Corps' first officially declared Mortuary Affairs unit in Iraq. Her platoon was tasked with recovering and processing the remains of fallen soldiers. With sensitivity and insight, Jess describes her job retrieving and examining the remains of fellow soldiers lost in combat in Iraq, and the psychological intricacy of coping with their fates, as well as her own.
-
-
Credit-Worthy Slug to the Gut
- By Gillian on 03-25-14
By: Jessica Goodell, and others
-
All the Ways We Kill and Die
- An Elegy for a Fallen Comrade, and the Hunt for His Killer
- By: Brian Castner
- Narrated by: Brian Castner
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The EOD - explosive ordnance disposal - community is tight-knit, and when one of their own is hurt, an alarm goes out. When Brian Castner, an Iraq War vet, learns that his friend and EOD brother Matt has been killed by an IED in Afghanistan, he goes to console Matt's widow, but he also begins a personal investigation. Is the bomb maker who killed Matt the same man American forces have been hunting since Iraq, known as the Engineer?
-
-
It was an eye opening book.
- By Travis Garrett on 10-09-17
By: Brian Castner
-
No Tougher Duty, No Greater Honor
- A Memoir of a Mortuary Affairs Marine
- By: GySgt L. Christian Bussler - Ret.
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 10 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An autobiographical account of one US Marine Reservists tours as a Mortuary Affairs Marine. His story begins in 2002 as an everyday postal letter carrier in Springfield, Ohio when he gets the call to muster. In the next three years, his life is thrust onto the world stage as an active participant in combat. His unique experiences as an MA (Mortuary Affairs) Marine puts him and his teammates directly into the path of war. Told in first person view, hear what it was like to witness a regime crumble, walk the streets of terrorist-held cities, go on Search and Recovery missions, and more.
-
-
Emotional Roller Coaster That Is Deployment
- By brandon becker on 08-03-18
-
Generation Kill
- By: Evan Wright
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 13 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
They were called a generation without heroes. Then they were called upon to be heroes. Within hours of 9/11, America's war on terrorism fell to those like the 23 Marines of the First Recon Battalion, the first generation dispatched into open-ended combat since Vietnam.
-
-
Politically Neutral??.....Not.
- By Brett on 11-26-12
By: Evan Wright
-
In the Company of Heroes
- The True Story of Black Hawk Pilot Michael Durant and the Men Who Fought and Fell at Mogadishu
- By: Michael Durant, Steven Hartov
- Narrated by: Michael Durant
- Length: 5 hrs and 31 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Durant's experience as a prisoner in Somalia grew increasingly bizarre, crystallizing a clash of cultures by turns frightening, melancholy, hilarious, and strangely familiar. Revealing never-before-told stories with the incisive thought and emotion of one who was there, In the Company of Heroes is one man's unforgettable, true story of going to hell and making it back alive.
-
-
27 years after the fact, I finally listened.
- By Michael on 06-30-21
By: Michael Durant, and others
-
Echo in Ramadi
- The Firsthand Story of U.S. Marines in Iraq's Deadliest City
- By: Scott A. Huesing
- Narrated by: David Marantz
- Length: 9 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the winter of 2006 through the spring of 2007, 250 marines from Echo Company, Second Battalion, Fourth Marine Regiment, fought daily in the dangerous, dense city streets of Ramadi, Iraq, during the Multi-National Forces Surge ordered by President George W. Bush. The marines' mission: to kill or capture anti-Iraqi forces. Their experience: like being in hell. Now Major Scott A. Huesing, the commander who led Echo Company through Ramadi, takes listeners back to the streets of Ramadi in a visceral, gripping portrayal of modern urban combat.
-
-
Combat is Combat
- By Calvin Guthrie on 05-21-18
By: Scott A. Huesing
-
Silent Warrior
- The Marine Sniper's Vietnam Story Continues
- By: Charles Henderson
- Narrated by: Corey M. Snow
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the U.S. Marine Corps, the most dangerous job in combat is that of the sniper. With no backup and little communication with the outside world, these men disappear for weeks on end in the wilderness with nothing but intellect and iron will to protect them - as they watch, wait, and finally strike. But of all of the snipers who ever hunted human prey, one man stands above the rest as the most legendary fighting man to ever pull a trigger. That man is Carlos Hathcock.
-
-
Just like Marine stories should be told
- By James A. on 04-16-15
-
Where Cowards Go to Die
- By: Benjamin Sledge
- Narrated by: Bradford Hastings
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
While serving a portion of his time under the Special Operations Command, Benjamin Sledge fought to keep his humanity amid the killing fields of Iraq and Afghanistan. But war never leaves its participants unscathed. In Where Cowards Go to Die, Sledge reveals an unflinchingly honest portrait of war that few dare to tell.
-
-
Couldn't stop listening
- By Matthew Orlandi on 07-29-22
By: Benjamin Sledge
-
Ghosts of War
- By: Ryan Smithson
- Narrated by: Ryan Smithson
- Length: 5 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ryan Smithson joined the Army Reserve when he was 17. Two years later, he was deployed to Iraq as an Army engineer. In this extraordinary and harrowing memoir, readers march along one GI's tour of duty. It will change the way you feel about what it means to be an American.
-
-
Interesting but dry
- By TRP33 - Keenum on 02-07-20
By: Ryan Smithson
Critic reviews
“Riveting and morally complex, Volunteers is not only an insider’s account of war. It takes you inside the increasingly closed culture that creates our warriors. In the case of Jerad W. Alexander, that culture has also created a writer of remarkable talent.”—Elliot Ackerman, author of the National Book Award finalist Dark at the Crossing
“A beautiful and powerfully affecting portrait of a boyhood in a military family, in which contrasting and ever more complex views of America, of war, and of what it means to be a soldier lead to the decision to join the military and serve in Iraq. In that way, it’s also a portrait of the stories we tell ourselves, and how those stories fare when our children grow up and try to live them.”—Phil Klay, author of Redeployment (winner of the National Book Award) and Missionaries
“With this work, Jerad W. Alexander has staked his claim as one of the most necessary voices while contributing to a necessary and overdue examination of our military culture and what it means to be an American. An absolute triumph.”—Jared Yates Sexton, author of American Rule: How a Nation Conquered the World but Failed Its People
Related to this topic
-
Pumpkinflowers
- A Soldier's Story
- By: Matti Friedman
- Narrated by: Eric Michael Summerer
- Length: 5 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Using humor, pop culture, and even musical references, Michael Friedman re-creates the wartime experience in a narrative that is part memoir, part journalism, part military history. The years in question were pivotal ones, seeing the perfection of a type of warfare that would eventually be exported to Afghanistan and Iraq and has come to seem like the only kind of warfare in existence - wars in which there is never any clear victory, but not quite enough lives are lost to rally the country against it.
-
-
Israeli Defense Fighter’s Story of War in Lebanon
- By Debbie on 05-02-19
By: Matti Friedman
-
The Odyssey of Echo Company
- The 1968 Tet Offensive and the Epic Battle to Survive the Vietnam War
- By: Doug Stanton
- Narrated by: CJ Wilson
- Length: 8 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A powerful work of literary military history from the New York Times best-selling author of In Harm's Way and Horse Soldiers - the harrowing and redemptive account of an American army platoon fighting for survival during the Vietnam War.
-
-
Great look into what a Nam solder endured.
- By Tony on 12-13-17
By: Doug Stanton
-
The Long Walk
- A Story of War and the Life That Follows
- By: Brian Castner
- Narrated by: Brian Castner
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Brian Castner served three tours of duty in the Middle East, two of them as the commander of an Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit in Iraq. Days and nights he and his team—his brothers—would venture forth in heavily armed convoys from their Forward Operating Base to engage in the nerve-racking yet strangely exhilarating work of either disarming the deadly improvised explosive devices that had been discovered, or picking up the pieces when the alert came too late.
-
-
Heart wrenching and a compelling read
- By J. Masters on 08-08-12
By: Brian Castner
-
Where Cowards Go to Die
- By: Benjamin Sledge
- Narrated by: Bradford Hastings
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
While serving a portion of his time under the Special Operations Command, Benjamin Sledge fought to keep his humanity amid the killing fields of Iraq and Afghanistan. But war never leaves its participants unscathed. In Where Cowards Go to Die, Sledge reveals an unflinchingly honest portrait of war that few dare to tell.
-
-
Couldn't stop listening
- By Matthew Orlandi on 07-29-22
By: Benjamin Sledge
-
The Forever War
- By: Dexter Filkins
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 11 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Through the eyes of Dexter Filkins, we witness the chain of events that began with the rise of the Taliban in the 1990s, continued with the attacks of 9/11, and moved on to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Forever War allows us a visceral understanding of today's battlefields and of the experiences of the people on the ground, warriors and innocents alike. It is a brilliant, fearless work, not just about America's wars after 9/11, but ultimately about the nature of war itself.
-
-
A memorable "read"
- By TCinDC on 02-16-09
By: Dexter Filkins
-
The Unforgiving Minute
- A Soldier's Education
- By: Craig Mullaney
- Narrated by: Todd McLaren
- Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A fascinating account of an Army captain's unusual path through some of the most legendary seats of learning straight into a brutal fight with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, The Unforgiving Minute is, above all, an unforgettable portrait of a young soldier grappling with the weight of his hard-earned knowledge while coming to grips with becoming a man.
-
-
The Unforgiving Son
- By John on 08-21-09
By: Craig Mullaney
-
Pumpkinflowers
- A Soldier's Story
- By: Matti Friedman
- Narrated by: Eric Michael Summerer
- Length: 5 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Using humor, pop culture, and even musical references, Michael Friedman re-creates the wartime experience in a narrative that is part memoir, part journalism, part military history. The years in question were pivotal ones, seeing the perfection of a type of warfare that would eventually be exported to Afghanistan and Iraq and has come to seem like the only kind of warfare in existence - wars in which there is never any clear victory, but not quite enough lives are lost to rally the country against it.
-
-
Israeli Defense Fighter’s Story of War in Lebanon
- By Debbie on 05-02-19
By: Matti Friedman
-
The Odyssey of Echo Company
- The 1968 Tet Offensive and the Epic Battle to Survive the Vietnam War
- By: Doug Stanton
- Narrated by: CJ Wilson
- Length: 8 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A powerful work of literary military history from the New York Times best-selling author of In Harm's Way and Horse Soldiers - the harrowing and redemptive account of an American army platoon fighting for survival during the Vietnam War.
-
-
Great look into what a Nam solder endured.
- By Tony on 12-13-17
By: Doug Stanton
-
The Long Walk
- A Story of War and the Life That Follows
- By: Brian Castner
- Narrated by: Brian Castner
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Brian Castner served three tours of duty in the Middle East, two of them as the commander of an Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit in Iraq. Days and nights he and his team—his brothers—would venture forth in heavily armed convoys from their Forward Operating Base to engage in the nerve-racking yet strangely exhilarating work of either disarming the deadly improvised explosive devices that had been discovered, or picking up the pieces when the alert came too late.
-
-
Heart wrenching and a compelling read
- By J. Masters on 08-08-12
By: Brian Castner
-
Where Cowards Go to Die
- By: Benjamin Sledge
- Narrated by: Bradford Hastings
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
While serving a portion of his time under the Special Operations Command, Benjamin Sledge fought to keep his humanity amid the killing fields of Iraq and Afghanistan. But war never leaves its participants unscathed. In Where Cowards Go to Die, Sledge reveals an unflinchingly honest portrait of war that few dare to tell.
-
-
Couldn't stop listening
- By Matthew Orlandi on 07-29-22
By: Benjamin Sledge
-
The Forever War
- By: Dexter Filkins
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 11 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Through the eyes of Dexter Filkins, we witness the chain of events that began with the rise of the Taliban in the 1990s, continued with the attacks of 9/11, and moved on to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Forever War allows us a visceral understanding of today's battlefields and of the experiences of the people on the ground, warriors and innocents alike. It is a brilliant, fearless work, not just about America's wars after 9/11, but ultimately about the nature of war itself.
-
-
A memorable "read"
- By TCinDC on 02-16-09
By: Dexter Filkins
-
The Unforgiving Minute
- A Soldier's Education
- By: Craig Mullaney
- Narrated by: Todd McLaren
- Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A fascinating account of an Army captain's unusual path through some of the most legendary seats of learning straight into a brutal fight with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, The Unforgiving Minute is, above all, an unforgettable portrait of a young soldier grappling with the weight of his hard-earned knowledge while coming to grips with becoming a man.
-
-
The Unforgiving Son
- By John on 08-21-09
By: Craig Mullaney
-
Two Wars
- One Hero's Fight on Two Fronts: Abroad and Within
- By: Nate Self
- Narrated by: Nate Self
- Length: 8 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For the first time, Army Ranger hero Nate Self tells his story. Self recounts the Roberts Ridge Rescue mission, the ferocious battles in Afghanistan, and the lone war of attrition that Nate Self has waged against post-traumatic stress disorder. This audio will become a go-to work for understanding the long-term effects of the war on terror. Thousands of families are fighting this battle, and Nate Self opens up his whole life - tragedies, successes, failures, and a struggle with suicidal thoughts - to share the facts.
-
-
Story of a Young Warrior
- By Becky Lea on 09-15-24
By: Nate Self
-
One Bullet Away
- The Making of Marine Officer
- By: Nathaniel Fick
- Narrated by: Nathaniel Fick
- Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A former captain in the Marines' First Recon Battalion, who fought in Afghanistan and Iraq, reveals how the Corps trains its elite and offers a point-blank account of twenty-first-century battle. Fick's training begins with a hellish summer at Quantico, after his junior year at Dartmouth, and advances to the pinnacle, Recon, four years later, on the eve of war with Iraq.
-
-
Book incomplete.
- By Amazon Customer on 08-06-17
By: Nathaniel Fick
-
Back in the Fight
- The Explosive Memoir of a Special Operator Who Never Gave Up
- By: Joseph Kapacziewski, Charles W. Sasser
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller, Jo Anna Perrin
- Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On October 3, 2005, Kapacziewski and his soldiers were coming to the end of their tour in Northern Iraq when their convoy was attacked by enemy fighters. A grenade fell through the gunner’s hatch and exploded, shattering Kapacziewski’s right leg below the knee, damaging his right hip, and severing a nerve and artery in his right arm. He endured more than forty surgeries, but his right leg still wasn’t healing as he had hoped, so in March 2007, Kapacziewski chose to have it amputated.
-
-
A true hero.
- By Anonymous User on 01-28-21
By: Joseph Kapacziewski, and others
-
The Good Soldiers
- By: David Finkel
- Narrated by: Mark Boyett
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It was the last-chance moment of the war. In January 2007, President George W. Bush announced a new strategy for Iraq. He called it "the surge". "Many listening tonight will ask why this effort will succeed when previous operations to secure Baghdad did not. Well, here are the differences," he told a skeptical nation. Among those listening were the young, optimistic Army infantry soldiers of the 2-16, the battalion nicknamed the Rangers.
-
-
Honest opinion folks
- By james on 11-06-11
By: David Finkel
-
Eat the Apple
- A Memoir
- By: Matt Young
- Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
- Length: 5 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A gut-wrenching, beautiful memoir which explores toxic masculinity and the devastating consequences of war on one impressionable young soldier Matt Young joined the Marine Corps aged 18, after a drunken night that culminated in him crashing his car into a fire hydrant. The teenage wasteland he fled followed him to the training bases of California. Young survived training and then three deployments to Iraq as an infantryman.
-
-
Annoying and smug
- By Charlie on 01-03-19
By: Matt Young
-
The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell
- An Accidental Soldier's Account of the War in Iraq
- By: John Crawford
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 5 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
John Crawford joined the Florida National Guard to pay for his college tuition; it had seemed a small sacrifice to give up one weekend a month and two weeks a year in exchange for a free education. But one semester short of graduating, and newly married, he was called to active duty, to serve in Kuwait, then on the front lines of the invasion of Iraq, and ultimately in Baghdad. While serving in Iraq, Crawford began writing short nonfiction stories, his account of what he and his fellow soldiers experienced.
-
-
An honest, real account of the Iraq War
- By Michael J. Mountain on 09-07-05
By: John Crawford
-
Love, Africa
- A Memoir of Romance, War, and Survival
- By: Jeffrey Gettleman
- Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A seasoned war correspondent, Jeffrey Gettleman has covered every major conflict over the past 20 years, from Afghanistan to Iraq to the Congo. For the past decade, he has served as the East Africa bureau chief for the New York Times, fulfilling his teenage dream of living in Africa. Love, Africa is the story of how he got there - and of his difficult, winding path toward becoming a good reporter and a better man.
-
-
Loved this book!!!
- By Benjamin on 05-26-17
-
Silent Warrior
- The Marine Sniper's Vietnam Story Continues
- By: Charles Henderson
- Narrated by: Corey M. Snow
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the U.S. Marine Corps, the most dangerous job in combat is that of the sniper. With no backup and little communication with the outside world, these men disappear for weeks on end in the wilderness with nothing but intellect and iron will to protect them - as they watch, wait, and finally strike. But of all of the snipers who ever hunted human prey, one man stands above the rest as the most legendary fighting man to ever pull a trigger. That man is Carlos Hathcock.
-
-
Just like Marine stories should be told
- By James A. on 04-16-15
-
Policing Saigon
- By: Loren W. Christensen
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Policing Saigon isn't Platoon or Apocalypse Now, but the story of Loren W. Christensen's experience as a military policeman (MP) in a city of millions at a time when chaos and fear reigned. As a 23-year-old from a small town in Washington State, the author was plunged into a chaotic city of brawling servicemen, prostitutes, racial violence, enemy rockets, riots, and death. It was a place that would give him a unique opportunity to see up close a different side of the Vietnam War and its effect on the human condition.
-
-
Forget about it.
- By Amazon Customer on 07-22-21
-
My War Gone By, I Miss It So
- By: Anthony Loyd
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 11 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With elegance and unsparing honesty, special correspondent for The Times of London, Anthony Loyd records this harrowing account of modern war. My War Gone By, I Miss It So exposes the unspeakable terror, visceral thrill of combat, and countless lives laid waste in Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War II. Unsatisfied by a brief stint in the British army and driven by the despair of drug dependence, the author was searching for excitement when he set out for Bosnia in 1993.
-
-
Fun book. Low anti Serb bias for an Anglo
- By Paul on 09-14-17
By: Anthony Loyd
-
Loon
- A Marine Story
- By: Jack McLean
- Narrated by: Chris Andrew Ciulla
- Length: 7 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"Kids like me didn't go to Vietnam", writes Jack McLean in his must-listen memoir. Raised in suburban New Jersey, he attended the Phillips Academy in Andover, MA, but decided to put college on hold. After graduation in the spring of 1966, faced with the mandatory military draft, he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps for a two-year stint. "Vietnam at the time was a country, and not yet a war", he writes. It didn't remain that way for long.
-
-
Besides a production issue, excellent.
- By LEE on 05-02-19
By: Jack McLean
-
In the Company of Heroes
- The True Story of Black Hawk Pilot Michael Durant and the Men Who Fought and Fell at Mogadishu
- By: Michael Durant, Steven Hartov
- Narrated by: Michael Durant
- Length: 5 hrs and 31 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Durant's experience as a prisoner in Somalia grew increasingly bizarre, crystallizing a clash of cultures by turns frightening, melancholy, hilarious, and strangely familiar. Revealing never-before-told stories with the incisive thought and emotion of one who was there, In the Company of Heroes is one man's unforgettable, true story of going to hell and making it back alive.
-
-
27 years after the fact, I finally listened.
- By Michael on 06-30-21
By: Michael Durant, and others
What listeners say about Volunteers
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- K. Young
- 04-16-23
Not your typical chest thumping war story
Jerad gets to heart heart of how and why young men and women find themselves at war - voluntarily. Looking forward to more works from this author!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!