A Soldier First
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| Author | : Rick Hillier |
| Publisher | : HarperCollins Canada |
| Total Pages | : 546 |
| Release | : 2010-06-01 |
| Genre | : Biography & Autobiography |
| ISBN | : 1554688469 |
In the summer of 2008, General Rick Hillier retired as Chief of the Defence staff of the Canadian Forces. You could almost hear the sigh of relief in Ottawa as Canada’s most popular, and most controversial, military leader since the Second World War left a role in which he’d been as frank, unpredictable and resolutely apolitical as any of his predecessors. Born and raised in Newfoundland, Hillier joined the military as a young man and quickly climbed the ranks. He played a significant role in such domestic challenges as the ice storm that paralyzed much of eastern Ontario and Quebec in 1998, and quickly became a player on the international scene, commanding an American corps in Texas and a multinational NATO task force in Bosnia-Herzegovina. But it was his role as General Rick Hillier, Canada’s Chief of the Defence staff, that defined him as a Canadian icon. In Afghanistan, Canada faced its first combat losses since the Korean War, with every casualty becoming front page news. A country formerly ambivalent, or even angry, about its role in the conflict suddenly became gripped by the drama unfolding not only in a war zone halfway around the world but in unfriendly conference rooms in Ottawa. There, as everywhere, Hillier pulled no punches, demanding more funding, more troops and more appreciation for the women and men fighting a war on foreign soil. This hard-hitting, honest account of Hillier’s role—told in his own words—will be one of the most important books published in Canada this decade.
| Author | : Stephen G. Fritz |
| Publisher | : Yale University Press |
| Total Pages | : 493 |
| Release | : 2018-11-13 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : 0300240759 |
“An expert account of Nazi war strategy that concludes that Hitler was not without military talent.”(Kirkus Reviews) After Germany’s humiliating World War II defeat, numerous German generals published memoirs claiming that their country’s brilliant military leadership had been undermined by the Führer’s erratic decision making. The author of three highly acclaimed books on the era, Stephen Fritz upends this characterization of Hitler as an ill-informed fantasist and demonstrates the ways in which his strategy was coherent and even competent. That Hitler saw World War II as the only way to retrieve Germany’s fortunes and build an expansionist Thousand-Year Reich is uncontroversial. But while his generals did sometimes object to Hitler’s tactics and operational direction, they often made the same errors in judgment and were in agreement regarding larger strategic and political goals. A necessary volume for understanding the influence of World War I on Hitler’s thinking, this work is also an eye-opening reappraisal of major events like the invasion of Russia and the battle for Normandy. “Perhaps the best account we have to date of Hitler’s military leadership. It shows a scrupulous and imaginative historian at work and will cement Fritz’s reputation as one of the leading historians of the military conflicts generated by Hitler’s Germany.” —Richard Overy, author of The Bombing War “Original, insightful and authoritative.” —David Stahel, author of The Battle for Moscow
| Author | : Emilio Lussu |
| Publisher | : Rizzoli Publications |
| Total Pages | : 277 |
| Release | : 2014-02-25 |
| Genre | : Biography & Autobiography |
| ISBN | : 0847842797 |
A rediscovered World War I masterpiece—one of the few memoirs about the Italian front—for fans of military history and All Quiet on the Western Front An infantryman’s “harrowing, moving, [and] occasionally comic” account of trench warfare on the alpine front seen in A Farewell to Arms (Times Literary Supplement). Taking its place alongside works by Ernst JŸnger, Robert Graves, and Erich Maria Remarque, Emilio Lussu’s memoir as an infantryman is one of the most affecting accounts to come out of the First World War. A classic in Italy but virtually unknown in the English-speaking world, it reveals in spare and detached prose the almost farcical side of the war as seen by a Sardinian officer fighting the Austrian army on the Asiago plateau in northeastern Italy—the alpine front so poignantly evoked by Ernest Hemingway in A Farewell to Arms. For Lussu, June 1916 to July 1917 was a year of continuous assaults on impregnable trenches, absurd missions concocted by commanders full of patriotic rhetoric and vanity but lacking in tactical skill, and episodes often tragic and sometimes grotesque, where the incompetence of his own side was as dangerous as the attacks waged by the enemy. A rare firsthand account of the Italian front, Lussu’s memoir succeeds in staging a fierce indictment of the futility of war in a dry, often ironic style that sets his tale wholly apart from the Western Front of Remarque and adds an astonishingly modern voice to the literature of the Great War.
| Author | : David A. Falvey |
| Publisher | : Marshall Cavendish |
| Total Pages | : 40 |
| Release | : 2009 |
| Genre | : Biography & Autobiography |
| ISBN | : 9780761456377 |
The letters between a young solider in Iraq and a class in Long Island
| Author | : First Sgt. Daniel Hendrex |
| Publisher | : Simon and Schuster |
| Total Pages | : 275 |
| Release | : 2006-07-01 |
| Genre | : Biography & Autobiography |
| ISBN | : 1416934995 |
An uplifting story of unlikely friendship and hope during the Iraq War. After the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, First Sergeant Daniel Hendrex was dispatched along with his unit, Dragon Company, to Husaybah, a small town bordering Syria in the Sunni-dominated Al Anbar Province in Iraq. Their mission was to plug the bottleneck at the border checkpoint, where foreign fighters and weapons smugglers were filtering through daily to join the increasingly menacing insurgency growing rapidly in the region. It was at this checkpoint, amid relentless attacks, that Daniel and his men found the most effective ally of the war effort in the most unlikely of sources. In December 2003 a skinny Iraqi kid about fourteen years old approached one of the soldiers at the border and said simply, “Arrest me.” Jamil, as he was called, claimed to have valuable information about the insurgency, but First Sergeant Hendrex was skeptical—especially when the boy announced that the man he wanted to turn in was his own father. The story that unfolds is one of heartbreaking tragedy, remarkable courage, and unprecedented resiliency, as this child of the insurgency takes it upon himself to fight back with the help of the US Army...and loses everything in the process—his country, his home, and his family. But through the power of his own conviction and his finely honed survival skills, Jamil (who was quickly nicknamed Steve-O by the soldiers of Dragon Company) sought refuge with the US military in exchange for information. He risked everything he knew for a chance at freedom—a choice few men, let alone children, have to make in their lifetimes. And after Steve-O helped save countless lives, First Sergeant Hendrex made it his personal mission to repay his debt and get the boy to safety. A Soldier’s Promise is an incredible story of sacrifice and courage by an Iraqi boy and the US soldiers who protected him from certain death by bringing him to the United States. It’s an astonishing tale of two countries and two very different kinds of people joining together against terror and tyranny, and of the young man who, against all odds, gave Dragon Company what they desperately needed—hope.
| Author | : Steven McLaughlin |
| Publisher | : Random House |
| Total Pages | : 230 |
| Release | : 2011-05-20 |
| Genre | : Biography & Autobiography |
| ISBN | : 1780572026 |
From the harsh realities of basic training to post-war chaos in Iraq and knife-edge tension in Northern Ireland, Squaddie takes us to a place not advertised in army recruitment brochures. It exposes the grim reality of everyday soldiering for the 'grunts on the ground'. After the tragic death of his brother, and in the dark days following 9/11, McLaughlin felt compelled to fulfil his lifelong ambition to serve in the army. He followed his late brother into the elite Royal Green Jackets and passed the arduous Combat Infantryman's Course at the age of 31. Thereafter, McLaughlin found himself submerged in a world of casual violence. Squaddie is a snapshot of infantry soldiering in the twenty-first century. It takes us into the heart of an ancient institution that is struggling to retain its tough traditions in a rapidly changing world. All of the fears and anxieties that the modern soldier carries as his burden are laid bare, as well as the occasional joys and triumphs that can make him feel like he is doing the best job in the world. This is an account of army life by someone who has been there and done it.
| Author | : Mark Helprin |
| Publisher | : Houghton Mifflin |
| Total Pages | : 808 |
| Release | : 1991 |
| Genre | : Fiction |
| ISBN | : |
A young aesthete from a privileged Roman family, Alexandro Giuliani, found his charmed existence shattered by the coming of WWI. Highly recommended.
| Author | : Anthony King |
| Publisher | : OUP Oxford |
| Total Pages | : 553 |
| Release | : 2013-02-21 |
| Genre | : Political Science |
| ISBN | : 0191633437 |
How do small groups of combat soldiers maintain their cohesion under fire? This question has long intrigued social scientists, military historians, and philosophers. Based on extensive research and drawing on graphic analysis of close quarter combat from the Somme to Sangin, the book puts forward a novel and challenging answer to this question. Against the common presumption of the virtues of the citizen soldier, this book claims that, in fact, the infantry platoon of the mass twentieth century army typically performed poorly and demonstrated low levels of cohesion in combat. With inadequate time and resources to train their troops for the industrial battlefield, citizen armies typically relied on appeals to masculinity, nationalism and ethnicity to unite their troops and to encourage them to fight. By contrast, cohesion among today's professional soldiers is generated and sustained quite differently. While concepts of masculinity and patriotism are not wholly irrelevant, the combat performance of professional soldiers is based primarily on drills which are inculcated through intense training regimes. Consequently, the infantry platoon has become a highly skilled team capable of collective virtuosity in combat. The increasing importance of training, competence and drills to the professional infantry soldier has not only changed the character of cohesion in the twenty-first century platoon but it has also allowed for a wider social membership of this group. Soldiers are no longer included or excluded into the platoon on the basis of their skin colour, ethnicity, social background, sexuality or even sex (women are increasingly being included in the infantry) but their professional competence alone: can they do the job? In this way, the book traces a profound transformation in the western way of warfare to shed light on wider processes of transformation in civilian society. This book is a project of the Oxford Programme on the Changing Character of War.
| Author | : Pamela Hill Nettleton |
| Publisher | : Capstone |
| Total Pages | : 25 |
| Release | : 2004 |
| Genre | : Juvenile Nonfiction |
| ISBN | : 1404801847 |
Give readers a fresh look into the fascinating lives of six famous Americans. This Series is aligned with the Standard, "The History of the United States' Democratic Principles and Values, and the Peoples from Many Cultures Who Contributed to Its Cultural, Economic, and Political Heritage," as required by the National Council for History.
| Author | : David R. Lawrence |
| Publisher | : BRILL |
| Total Pages | : 465 |
| Release | : 2009 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : 9004170790 |
The period 1603-1645 witnessed the publication of more than ninety books, manuals, and broadsheets dedicated to educating Englishmen in the military arts. Written with the intention of creating the a oecomplete soldiera, this didactic literature provided gentlemen with the requisite knowledge to engage in infantry, cavalry, and siege warfare. Drawing on military history and book history, this is the first detailed study of the impact of military books on military practice in Jacobean and Caroline England. Putting military books firmly in the hands of soldiers, this work examines the circles that purchased and debated new titles, the veterans who authored them, and their influence on military thought and training in the years leading up to the English Civil War.
