Memorial Day was on Monday. It is a day to remember those who have donned a uniform and served this country. For this month's Variations on a Theme, I would like to share a list of books about members of the armed forces.
The Greatest Generation
Tom Brokaw
In this superb book, Tom Brokaw goes out into America, to tell through the stories of individual men and women the story of a generation, America's citizen heroes and heroines who came of age during the Great Depression and the Second World War and went on to build modern America. This generation was united not only by a common purpose, but also by common values--duty, honor, economy, courage, service, love of family and country, and, above all, responsibility for oneself. In this book, you will meet people whose everyday lives reveal how a generation persevered through war, and were trained by it, and then went on to create interesting and useful lives and the America we have today.
Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest
Stephen E. Ambrose
As good a rifle company as any in the world, Easy Company, 506th Airborne Division, U.S. Army, kept getting the tough assignements - responsible for everything from parachuting into France early D-Day morning to the capture of Hitler's Eagle's Nest at Berchtesgaden. In Band of Brothers, Ambrose tells of the men in this brave unit who fought, went hungry, froze, and died, a company that took 150 percent casualties and considered the Purple Heart a badge of office. Drawing on hours of interviews with survivors as well as the soldiers' journals and letters, Stephen Ambrose recounts the stories, often in the men's own words, of these American heroes.
Infidel
Tim Hetherington
Infidel is an intimate portrait of a single U.S. platoon, assigned to an outpost in the Korengal Valley-an area considered one of the most dangerous Afghan postings in the war against the Taliban-but it is as much about love and male vulnerability as it is about bravery and war. Embedded with writer Sebastian Junger, and shooting over the course of one year, photographer Tim Hetherington made a series of images that prove surprisingly tender in their depiction of camaraderie and vulnerability (among the most moving is a series of the platoon sleeping). Alongside revealing interviews with Hetherington's subjects and an introduction by Junger (with whom Hetherington co-directed the award-winning film Restrepo, about the work of the battalion), the book is also illustrated with graphics of the tattoos the soldiers gave each other in the camp. The title Infidel is taken from the tattoo the men adopted as a badge of their comradeship. Warm, moving and full of humor, this book is a tribute to the "rough men ready to do violence on our behalf" and a provocative contribution to the documentation of war in our time.
Master of Chaos: The Secret History of the Special Forces
Linda Robinson
In 2003, 85 years after the end of World War I, Richard Rubin set out to
see if he could still find and talk to someone who had actually served
in the American Expeditionary Forces during that colossal conflict.
Ultimately, he found dozens, aged 101 to 113, from Cape Cod to Carson
City, who shared with him at the last possible moment their stories of
America’s Great War. Nineteenth-century men and women living in the
twenty-first century, they were self-reliant, humble, and stoic, never
complaining, but still marveling at the immensity of the war they helped
win, and the complexity of the world they helped create. Though America
has largely forgotten their war, you will never forget them, or their
stories. A decade in the making, The Last of the Doughboys is the
most sweeping look at America’s First World War in a generation, a
glorious reminder of the tremendously important role America played in
the war to end all wars, as well as a moving meditation on character,
grace, aging, and memory.
Other Armed Forces Books
13 Soldiers - John McCain and Mark Salter
365 Days - Ronald J. Glasser
American Sniper - Chris Kyle
Five Came Back - Mark Harris
Flags of Our Fathers - James Bradley
Flyboys - James Bradley
For Love of Country - Howard Schultz and Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Helmet for My Pillow - Robert Leckie
Navy Seals - Dick Couch and William Doyle
Thank You For Your Service - David Finkel
Tom Brokaw
In this superb book, Tom Brokaw goes out into America, to tell through the stories of individual men and women the story of a generation, America's citizen heroes and heroines who came of age during the Great Depression and the Second World War and went on to build modern America. This generation was united not only by a common purpose, but also by common values--duty, honor, economy, courage, service, love of family and country, and, above all, responsibility for oneself. In this book, you will meet people whose everyday lives reveal how a generation persevered through war, and were trained by it, and then went on to create interesting and useful lives and the America we have today.
Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's NestStephen E. Ambrose
As good a rifle company as any in the world, Easy Company, 506th Airborne Division, U.S. Army, kept getting the tough assignements - responsible for everything from parachuting into France early D-Day morning to the capture of Hitler's Eagle's Nest at Berchtesgaden. In Band of Brothers, Ambrose tells of the men in this brave unit who fought, went hungry, froze, and died, a company that took 150 percent casualties and considered the Purple Heart a badge of office. Drawing on hours of interviews with survivors as well as the soldiers' journals and letters, Stephen Ambrose recounts the stories, often in the men's own words, of these American heroes.
Tim Hetherington
Infidel is an intimate portrait of a single U.S. platoon, assigned to an outpost in the Korengal Valley-an area considered one of the most dangerous Afghan postings in the war against the Taliban-but it is as much about love and male vulnerability as it is about bravery and war. Embedded with writer Sebastian Junger, and shooting over the course of one year, photographer Tim Hetherington made a series of images that prove surprisingly tender in their depiction of camaraderie and vulnerability (among the most moving is a series of the platoon sleeping). Alongside revealing interviews with Hetherington's subjects and an introduction by Junger (with whom Hetherington co-directed the award-winning film Restrepo, about the work of the battalion), the book is also illustrated with graphics of the tattoos the soldiers gave each other in the camp. The title Infidel is taken from the tattoo the men adopted as a badge of their comradeship. Warm, moving and full of humor, this book is a tribute to the "rough men ready to do violence on our behalf" and a provocative contribution to the documentation of war in our time.
Master of Chaos: The Secret History of the Special Forces Linda Robinson
Special Forces soldiers are daring, seasoned troops from America's
heartland, selected in a tough competition and trained in an
extraordinary range of skills. They know foreign languages and cultures
and unconventional warfare better than any U.S. fighters, and while they
prefer to stay out of the limelight, veteran war correspondent Linda
Robinson gained access to their closed world. She traveled with them on
the frontlines, interviewed them at length on their home bases, and
studied their doctrine, methods and history. In Masters of Chaos
she tells their story through a select group of senior sergeants and
field-grade officers, a band of unforgettable characters like Rawhide,
Killer, Michael T, and Alan -- led by the unflappable Lt. Col. Chris
Conner and Col. Charlie Cleveland, a brilliant but self-effacing West
Pointer who led the largest unconventional war campaign since Vietnam in
northern Iraq. Robinson follows the Special
Forces from their first post-Vietnam combat in Panama, El Salvador,
Desert Storm, Somalia, and the Balkans to their recent trials and
triumphs in Afghanistan and Iraq. She witnessed their secret sleuthing
and unsung successes in southern Iraq, and recounts here for the first
time the dramatic firefights of the western desert. Her blow-by-blow
story of the attack on Ansar al-Islam's international terrorist training
camp has never been told before. The most comprehensive account ever of the modern-day Special Forces in action, Masters of Chaos is filled with riveting, intimate detail in the words of a close-knit band of soldiers who have done it all.
Robert D. Kaplan
A fascinating, unprecedented first-hand look at the soldiers on the
front lines on the Global War on Terror. Plunging deep into midst of
some of the hottest conflicts on the globe, Robert D. Kaplan takes us
through mud and jungle, desert and dirt to the men and women on the
ground who are leading the charge against threats to American security.
These soldiers, fighting in thick Colombian jungles or on dusty Afghani
plains, are the forefront of the new American foreign policy, a policy
being implemented one soldier at a time. As Kaplan brings us inside
their thoughts, feelings, and operations, these modern grunts provide
insight and understanding into the War on Terror, bringing the war,
which sometimes seems so distant, vividly to life.
Richard Rubin
Other Armed Forces Books
13 Soldiers - John McCain and Mark Salter
365 Days - Ronald J. Glasser
American Sniper - Chris Kyle
Five Came Back - Mark Harris
Flags of Our Fathers - James Bradley
Flyboys - James Bradley
For Love of Country - Howard Schultz and Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Helmet for My Pillow - Robert Leckie
Navy Seals - Dick Couch and William Doyle
Thank You For Your Service - David Finkel
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