My Life in the Marines

My Life in the Marines
Author: Almon Collins
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
Total Pages: 60
Release: 2012-03
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781469183268

Most of the names are fiction. There is only a very few names that I remember. However, I do remember all of the events but not when the events happened. There are many small events that I remember but left out of the story. I could have added a few spicy events, but I wanted the stories to be accurate. I want my children to know a little of my life. Also I want the world, if the any of the world reads this book, to know how and why the Marines disassembles some of the man's character and reassembles the character to be combat ready to function for protecting this country. At that time of my life, a Marine always had a rifle in a protected rack ready to be issued ammunition for functioning as directed. After I was discharged, I wandered through life without direction for many years until I earned a degree with two Majors Mathematics and Physics. I was lucky and got a job with a company that manufactured missiles for submarines. It became a beautiful and a needed life. My life as a Marine and as a Mechanical Engineer has always been great. In 1952, the Marine Corps was very harsh, but I felt the Drill Instructors were not overly mean or really disrespectful. Their treatment was to have a Marine immediately responding to an order rather than cause many others to lose their lives. Marines are to protect this country and that is why I wanted to enlist in this outfit. When I reported to the aircraft flight line, I thought that the Boot Camp Instructor was a liar when he said that after boot camp we would be treated as a respectable man. A Staff Sergeant was sitting in a chair leaning back against the Quonset building. He was giving marching orders to a man with a back pack filled with sand and holding a rifle over his head. Oh hell, I am in more trouble. It is worth reading!

Unbecoming

Unbecoming
Author: Anuradha Bhagwati
Publisher: Atria Books
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2020-03-03
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1501162551

Brimming “with the ebullient Bhagwati’s fierce humanism, seething humor, and change-maker righteousness,” (Shelf Awareness) a raw, unflinching memoir by a former US Marine Captain chronicling her journey from dutiful daughter of immigrants to radical activist fighting for historic policy reform. After a lifetime of buckling to the demands of her strict Indian parents, Anuradha Bhagwati abandons grad school in the Ivy League to join the Marines—the fiercest, most violent, most masculine branch of the military—determined to prove herself there in ways she couldn’t before. Yet once training begins, Anuradha’s GI Jane fantasy is punctured. As a bisexual woman of color in the military, she faces underestimation at every stage, confronting misogyny, racism, sexual violence, and astonishing injustice perpetrated by those in power. Pushing herself beyond her limits, she also wrestles with what drove her to pursue such punishment in the first place. Once her service concludes in 2004, Anuradha courageously vows to take to task the very leaders and traditions that cast such a dark cloud over her time in the Marines. Her efforts result in historic change, including the lifting of the ban on women from pursuing combat roles in the military. “Bhagwati’s fight is both incensing and inspiring” (Booklist) in this tale of heroic resilience and grapples with the timely question of what, exactly, America stands for, showing how one woman learned to believe in herself in spite of everything.

Eat the Apple

Eat the Apple
Author: Matt Young
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2018-02-27
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1632869527

"The Iliad of the Iraq war" (Tim Weiner)--a gut-wrenching, beautiful memoir of the consequences of war on the psyche of a young man. Eat the Apple is a daring, twisted, and darkly hilarious story of American youth and masculinity in an age of continuous war. Matt Young joined the Marine Corps at age eighteen after a drunken night culminating in wrapping his car around a fire hydrant. The teenage wasteland he fled followed him to the training bases charged with making him a Marine. Matt survived the training and then not one, not two, but three deployments to Iraq, where the testosterone, danger, and stakes for him and his fellow grunts were dialed up a dozen decibels. With its kaleidoscopic array of literary forms, from interior dialogues to infographics to prose passages that read like poetry, Young's narrative powerfully mirrors the multifaceted nature of his experience. Visceral, ironic, self-lacerating, and ultimately redemptive, Young's story drops us unarmed into Marine Corps culture and lays bare the absurdism of 21st-century war, the manned-up vulnerability of those on the front lines, and the true, if often misguided, motivations that drove a young man to a life at war. Searing in its honesty, tender in its vulnerability, and brilliantly written, Eat the Apple is a modern war classic in the making and a powerful coming-of-age story that maps the insane geography of our times.

Left of Bang

Left of Bang
Author: Patrick Van Horne
Publisher: Black Irish Books
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2014-06-19
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 1936891182

"At a time when we must adapt to the changing character of conflict, this is a serious book on a serious issue that can give us the edge we need.” —General James Mattis, USMC, Ret. "Left of Bang offers a crisp lesson in survival in which Van Horne and Riley affirm a compelling truth: It's better to detect sinister intentions early than respond to violent actions late. Left of Bang helps readers avoid the bang." —Gavin de Becker, bestselling author of The Gift of Fear "Rare is the book that is immediately practical and interesting. Left of Bang accomplishes this from start to finish. There is something here for everyone in the people business and we are all in the people business." —Joe Navarro, bestselling author of What Every BODY is Saying. "Left of Bang is a highly important and innovative book that offers a substantial contribution to answering the challenge of Fourth Generation war (4GW)." —William S. Lind, author of Maneuver Warfare Handbook "Like Sun Tzu's The Art of War, Left of Bang isn't just for the military. It's a must read for anyone who has ever had a gut feeling that something's not quite right...be it walking down the street, sitting in a corporate boardroom, or even entering an empty home." --Steven Pressfield, bestselling author of The Lion's Gate, The Warrior Ethos and Gates of Fire “An amazing book! Applying the lessons learned during the longest war in American history, and building on seminal works like The Gift of Fear and On Combat, this book provides a framework of knowledge that will bring military, law enforcement, and individual citizens to new levels of survival mindset and performance in life-and-death situations. Left of Bang is an instant classic.” --Lt. Colonel Dave Grossman, U.S. Army Ret., author of On Combat and On Killing -- You walk into a restaurant and get an immediate sense that you should leave. -- You are about to step onto an elevator with a stranger and something stops you. -- You interview a potential new employee who has the resume to do the job, but something tells you not to offer a position. These scenarios all represent LEFT OF BANG, the moments before something bad happens. But how many times have you talked yourself out of leaving the restaurant, getting off the elevator, or getting over your silly “gut” feeling about someone? Is there a way to not just listen to your inner protector more, but to actually increase your sensitivity to threats before they happen? Legendary Marine General James Mattis asked the same question and issued a directive to operationalize the Marine Corps’ Combat Hunter program. A comprehensive and no-nonsense approach to heightening each and every one of our gifts of fear, LEFT OF BANG is the result.

One of Us

One of Us
Author: Jack Ruppert
Publisher: Praeger
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2003-04-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 0275972224

This engaging book plunges readers into the culture shock of Marine Officer Candidates School, a ten-week physical, intellectual, and emotional testing ground so grueling that every fourth candidate fails to complete. What does it take to become a Marine Officer? This engaging book transports readers through the culture shock of Marine Officer Candidates School, a ten-week physical, intellectual, and emotional testing ground that every fourth candidate fails to complete. The Sergeant Instructors' intensity is palpable as candidates are made to strip away civilian habits and attitudes, replacing them the Marine Corps ethos in the hopes of becoming officers. Anecdotes and personal recollections of OCS by two generations of officers provide instructive, poignant, and humorous interludes for the reader. A second focus of the book involves research into the demographics, attitudes, and opinions of two groups of officers, separated in time by 50 years. This comparison across a wide range of personal and social issues and beliefs renders some surprising results that lie in opposition to conventional wisdom. From the older generation, the reader will better understand the lifelong impact of the Marine leadership experience. From today's officers, the reader will discover the motivations of today's allegedly soft and coddled young people to follow the difficult path to a lieutenant's gold bars. This book is required reading for anyone with an interest in the Marine Corps and its culture.

Corps Values

Corps Values
Author: Zell Miller
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Total Pages: 124
Release: 2020-09-15
Genre: Self-Help
ISBN: 0820359580

Zell Miller was one of the United States’ most respected leaders. His integrity, passion, and commitment to excellence earned the praise of colleagues on both sides of the aisle. Miller often attributed his successes to the value of his formative experience in the Marine Corps as a young man. In his writing and stump speeches, he stated, “In the twelve weeks of hell and transformation that were Marine Corps boot camp, I learned the values of achieving a successful life that have guided and sustained me on the course which, although sometimes checkered and detoured, I have followed ever since.” In Corps Values Miller recounts his life and the simple but powerful lessons he learned in the U.S. Marines: the core values he feels we must embrace if we are to be successful as individuals and as a nation. Only by incorporating such time-honored Marine qualities as pride, discipline, courage, and respect into our personal and professional lives can we meet the challenges that lie ahead. With Corps Values Miller urges us all to go back to “basic training” to reinforce the values that ultimately lead to success in any endeavor.

My Life in the Marines

My Life in the Marines
Author: Almon Collins
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
Total Pages: 59
Release: 2012-03-19
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1469110431

Most of the names are fiction. There is only a very few names that I remember. However, I do remember all of the events but not when the events happened. There are many small events that I remember but left out of the story. I could have added a few spicy events, but I wanted the stories to be accurate. I want my children to know a little of my life. Also I want the world, if the any of the world reads this book, to know how and why the Marines disassembles some of the mans character and reassembles the character to be combat ready to function for protecting this country. At that time of my life, a Marine always had a rifle in a protected rack ready to be issued ammunition for functioning as directed. After I was discharged, I wandered through life without direction for many years until I earned a degree with two Majors Mathematics and Physics. I was lucky and got a job with a company that manufactured missiles for submarines. It became a beautiful and a needed life. My life as a Marine and as a Mechanical Engineer has always been great. In 1952, the Marine Corps was very harsh, but I felt the Drill Instructors were not overly mean or really disrespectful. Their treatment was to have a Marine immediately responding to an order rather than cause many others to lose their lives. Marines are to protect this country and that is why I wanted to enlist in this outfit. When I reported to the aircraft flight line, I thought that the Boot Camp Instructor was a liar when he said that after boot camp we would be treated as a respectable man. A Staff Sergeant was sitting in a chair leaning back against the Quonset building. He was giving marching orders to a man with a back pack filled with sand and holding a rifle over his head. Oh hell, I am in more trouble. It is worth reading!

Marine!

Marine!
Author: Burke Davis
Publisher: Open Road Media
Total Pages: 327
Release: 2016-03-29
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1504034392

The gripping story of an extraordinary American hero, the most decorated man in US Marine Corps history, from a New York Times–bestselling author. “We are flanked on both sides by an enemy that outnumbers us 29:1. They can’t get away from us now!” —Lewis B. “Chesty” Puller, USMC In the glorious chronicles of the US Marine Corps, no name is more revered than that of Lt. Gen. Lewis B. “Chesty” Puller. The only fighting man to receive the Navy Cross five separate times—a military honor second only to the Congressional Medal of Honor—he was the epitome of a professional warrior. A son of the South, descendant of Robert E. Lee, and cousin to George S. Patton, Puller began his enlisted career during World War I and moved up through the ranks as he proved his battlefield mettle in Haiti and Nicaragua, with the Horse Marines in Peking, in the Pacific Theater of World War II, and in the nightmarish winter engagements of the Korean War. Fearless and seemingly indestructible, adored by the troops he championed yet forced into early retirement by a high command that resented his “lowly” beginnings and unwillingness to play politics, Puller remains one of most towering figures in American military history. Bestselling military biographer Burke Davis paints the definitive portrait of this extraordinary marine hero.