The Last First Sergeant

The Last First Sergeant
Author: Layton Black
Publisher: Griffith Publications
Total Pages: 388
Release: 1998-01-01
Genre: Ardennes, Battle of the, 1944-1945
ISBN: 9780966524000

The first sergeant

The first sergeant
Author: Bobby Owens
Publisher: BOBBY OWENS
Total Pages: 132
Release: 2000
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 9781884308260

Last to Leave the Field

Last to Leave the Field
Author: Timothy J. Orr
Publisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press
Total Pages: 345
Release: 2011-02-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 1572337931

Revealing the mind-set of a soldier seared by the horrors of combat even as he kept faith in his cause, Last to Leave the Field showcases the private letters of Ambrose Henry Hayward, a Massachusetts native who served in the 28th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. Hayward’s service, which began with his enlistment in the summer of 1861 and ended three years later following his mortal wounding at the Battle of Pine Knob in Georgia, took him through a variety of campaigns in both the Eastern and Western theaters of the war. He saw action in five states, participating in the battles of Antietam, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg as well as in the Chattanooga and Atlanta campaigns. Through his letters to his parents and siblings, we observe the early idealism of the young recruit, and then, as one friend after another died beside him, we witness how the war gradually hardened him. Yet, despite the increasing brutality of what would become America’s costliest conflict, Hayward continually reaffirmed his faith in the Union cause, reenlisting for service late in 1863. Hayward’s correspondence takes us through many of the war’s most significant developments, including the collapse of slavery and the enforcement of Union policy toward Southern civilians. Also revealed are Hayward’s feelings about Confederates, his assessments of Union political and military leadership, and his attitudes toward desertion, conscription, forced marches, drilling, fighting, bravery, cowardice, and comradeship. Ultimately, Hayward’s letters reveal the emotions—occasionally guarded but more often expressed with striking candor—of a soldier who at every battle resolved to be, as one comrade described him, “the first to spring forward and the last to leave the field.” Timothy J. Orr is an assistant professor of military history at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia.

The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell

The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell
Author: John Crawford
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2006-04-04
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1101217391

In the tradition of Michael Herr's Dispatches, a National Guardsman's account of the war in Iraq. John Crawford joined the Florida National Guard to pay for his college tuition, willingly exchanging one weekend a month and two weeks a year for a free education. But in Autumn 2002, one semester short of graduating and newly married—in fact, on his honeymoon—he was called to active duty and sent to the front lines in Iraq. Crawford and his unit spent months upon months patrolling the streets of Baghdad, occupying a hostile city. During the breaks between patrols, Crawford began recording what he and his fellow soldiers witnessed and experienced. Those stories became The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell—a haunting and powerful, compellingly honest book that imparts the on-the-ground reality of waging the war in Iraq, and marks as the introduction of a mighty literary voice forged in the most intense of circumstances.

The Sergeant in the Snow

The Sergeant in the Snow
Author: Mario Rigoni Stern
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
Total Pages: 116
Release: 1998
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780810160552

First published in Italy in 1953, this autobiography details the author's harrowing experiences as a soldier on the Russian front during World War II.

Last Known Alive

Last Known Alive
Author: Arlyn W Perkey
Publisher:
Total Pages: 166
Release: 2019-06-30
Genre:
ISBN: 9780999363836

The call of loyalty and the call of friendship compelled author Arlyn Perkey to investigate the fate of Donald L. Sparks--a Vietnam veteran with the high priority status of Missing in Action-Prisoner of War-Last Known Alive. Intertwining his own story with that of his friend Don, Perkey offers a portrait of two naive Iowa farm boys, drafted, sent to Vietnam, and wounded when their squads were ambushed. One returned to the life he had imagined. The other suffered a fate obscured by decades of misinformation, withheld information, and failed communication fostered by bureaucratic protocols and unwarranted paranoia. Last Know Alive pieces together the story of Donald L. Sparks' struggle to stay alive and return to his beloved Iowa home.

To The Last Man

To The Last Man
Author: Alexander Cohen
Publisher: Dog Ear Publishing
Total Pages: 278
Release: 2018-10-18
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1457566338

In the Forgotten War, there are many who served whose names and memories will never be forgotten. US Army Sergeant William T. Miles is one of them. From the hunting trips of his youth in the Pocono Mountains, where he learned many of the skills that would help him in wartime, to chaotic battlefields of Korea, Miles made a lasting impression on all those he knew—then he disappeared. On July 6, 1951, Miles was part of a joint US South Korean Special Forces team operating deep behind enemy lines in North Korea when the team was attacked by a large enemy force. As they tried to break contact with the enemy, Miles volunteered to stay behind and cover the retreat of his fellow team members. He was never seen or heard from again. Miles’s fate remained a mystery for decades after the end of the Korean War. Amid conflicting and erroneous reports of what happened on the day he disappeared, his family never knew the full details or circumstances of his disappearance. However, in 2017, new evidence discovered among declassified military documents and among the recollections of Korean War veterans shed new light on the story of William T. Miles and the sacrifice he made that day, providing closure to his family after sixty-six years.

Paratrooper: My Life with the 101st Airborne Division

Paratrooper: My Life with the 101st Airborne Division
Author: Michael B. Kitz-Miller
Publisher: Page Publishing Inc
Total Pages: 295
Release: 2015-08-17
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1681396378

Paratrooper is the autobiography of a young man’s time with the famed 101st Airborne Division “Screaming Eagles.” With not the finances to finish his senior year in college and a looming draft, it leads to his enlisting in the U.S. Army. With thoughts of Officer’s Candidate School, Private Michael B. Kitz-Miller heads for a newly designed Basic Training course for soldiers planning to attend Airborne School. High performance results in Leadership School and Acting Sergeant in Advanced Infantry School. At Airborne School he is a runner-up for Honor Graduate from his original class of 1,000 soldiers. Finally, the new paratrooper boards a bus for Ft. Campbell and the 101st. His first job is as an M-60 machine gunner, scoring expert his first time on the weapons range. Numerous operations follow – Cold Eagle, Swift Strike II, Desert Strike and the surprise Operation Delawar, jumping into Iran in 1964 as part of the U.S. STRIKE Command. All produce commendations and after winning the Division Soldier-of-the-Month competition a promotion to Sergeant. He soon becomes part of the Battalion Mountaineering cadre. The rigors of Recondo School and its incredible 35 percent graduation rate follow, offering a shot at Honor Graduate. Having won Battalion and Brigade competitions, the young paratrooper enters and finds himself a finalist in the Division’s Soldier-of-the-Year competition. Tough career decisions follow. The story ends with Sergeant Kitz-Miller’s opportunity, 50 years later to compare key issues that confronted him as a soldier with those of today. The evaluation of Officers and NCOs, leadership and mentoring are but a few. His final chapters on Just War Theory and current Rules of Engagement provide provocative ideas about how to address our current policies on terrorist states. Above all, it is the story of a very successful Paratrooper that loved the Airborne Infantry.

Tank Sergeant

Tank Sergeant
Author: Ralph Zumbro
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 260
Release: 1988
Genre: Vietnam War, 1961-1975
ISBN: 0671639455

Colorful and spellbinding, this is the combat autobiography of Sergeant Ralph "Zippo" Zumbro and the rarely told story of tank warfare in Vietnam. Zumbro's unit was the most highly decorated of the war, and his story is gripping reading for those interested in the Vietnam war and military nonfiction.