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A witty collection that celebrates the strength to find humor even in the most challenging circumstances—with proceeds benefiting veterans. Britain’s armed forces have a legendary sense of humor, dating back over generations of servicemen and women. The Laughing Soldier, aiding the veterans’ charity Project 65, is a collection of jokes, along with messages of support for the troops, sent in by people all over the world. Contributors include serving personnel, veterans and their families, the general public, celebrities such as Alan Titchmarsh, comedian Milton Jones, and public officials including George Osborne, all inspired by the Armed Forces’ strength and capacity for finding humor in the toughest of situations. With forewords by satirist Al Murray, a.k.a. the Pub Landlord, and ex-marine Mark Ormrod, the Afghanistan hero who lost three limbs to a landmine and bestselling author of Man Down, and illustrated with cartoons by The Comic Stripper, The Laughing Soldier’s collection of jokes will lift the spirits of servicemembers and their families—and those who care about them. A donation is made to Project 65 from the sale of every book.
"An army may march on its stomach but it leans on its funny bone." So says Brigadier Charles Ritchie, and he should know. Postings to the Yemen, Northern Ireland, Bosnia, and other far-away trouble spots gave him many opportunities to demonstrate that the ability to laugh - and make others laugh - is an invaluable skill in an officer's kitbag.In Laughter is the Best Weapon - the Remarkable Adventures of an Unconventional Soldier, Charles abandons the popular trend for military heroism and angst-ridden confessions. Instead he leads the reader on a forthright yet light-hearted and self-deprecating journey through his 38 years' service as a Royal Scot. In the process we witness his sometimes significant, but often comedic, participation in a wide range of recent British military operations.If you prefer your military history more entertainingly honest than earnestly intellectual and your soldiers hilariously slapstick rather than heroically stoic, then this is the book for you. Liberally sprinkled with career-limiting cock-ups, bizarre near-death experiences, and the clatter not of gunfire but shameless name-dropping, these delightfully varied anecdotes deliver a hugely entertaining glimpse into the extraordinary life of one of the British Army's most spirited and loveable characters.
“A raw, intimate look at the impact of combat and the healing power of friendship” (People): the lives of three women deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq, and the effect of their military service on their personal lives and families—named a best book of the year by Publishers Weekly. “In the tradition of Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, Richard Rhodes, and other masters of literary journalism, Soldier Girls is utterly absorbing, gorgeously written, and unforgettable” (The Boston Globe). Helen Thorpe follows the lives of three women over twelve years on their paths to the military, overseas to combat, and back home…and then overseas again for two of them. These women, who are quite different in every way, become friends, and we watch their interaction and also what happens when they are separated. We see their families, their lovers, their spouses, their children. We see them work extremely hard, deal with the attentions of men on base and in war zones, and struggle to stay connected to their families back home. We see some of them drink too much, have affairs, and react to the deaths of fellow soldiers. And we see what happens to one of them when the truck she is driving hits an explosive in the road, blowing it up. She survives, but her life may never be the same again. Deeply reported, beautifully written, and powerfully moving, Soldier Girls is “a breakthrough work...What Thorpe accomplishes in Soldier Girls is something far greater than describing the experience of women in the military. The book is a solid chunk of American history...Thorpe triumphs” (The New York Times Book Review).
A picaresque series of tales about an ordinary man's successful quest to survive, and a funny but unrelentingly savage assault on the very idea of bureaucratic officialdom as a human enterprise conferring benefits on those who live under its control, and on the various justifications bureaucracies offer for their own existence.
This book is personal. And it's about you. Nobody understands what it feels like to be a soldier except another soldier. It's about your family back home. It's about trying to gain respect. It's about achieving something important after feeling like a failure. It's about living far from home and feeling lonely. It's about discovering women. It's about good and bad bosses. It's about successes and failures, excitement and frustration. Sound like you yet? And the book will bring back memories. I'll share my story while you reflect upon your own. In fact, it will draw you back to your childhood, and spur visions of your future. No soldier's story is dull if you have a sense of humor. And you'll laugh at my story as well as your own as we quickly turn the pages together. It's an easy read, too. Stories of my life in the military are a quick, two-page read for the most part. I follow up with a few questions directed to you about your own story. That's why sometimes a bunch of guys might get together over lunch and read some of these together. It gets you laughing and sharing about your own journey down the road. This book is a chronological collection beginning with the decision to join the military, and continues the trip in 37 short pieces. There's a pretty good table of contents if you want to target a special spot in your career. Volumes 2-4 continue the journey if you'd like to travel on! This book is for the new recruit. This book is for the naive soldier. This book is for the career guys. It's for the lonely guy who needs a quick read. It's for hooch-mates to laugh about. It's food for the soul, like having a chaplain in your pocket. I'd like to be like your secret big brother, who comes from the same thread, who has been on the same road trip with you, and won't leave your side. One more thing. If you've had a hard time of it, if your life hasn't gone the way you had hoped, if you screwed it all up - then you need t
Contains thirty-seven narratives, drawn from letters, diaries, private memoirs, and oral histories in which American veterans describe their experiences serving in conflicts from the First World War to the twenty-first-century war in Iraq.
The children's issues picture book Why Is Dad So Mad? is a story for children in military families whose father battles with combat related Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). After a decade fighting wars on two fronts, tens of thousands of service members are coming home having trouble adjusting to civilian life; this includes struggling as parents. Why Is Dad So Mad? Is a narrative story told from a family's point of view (mother and children) of a service member who struggles with PTSD and its symptoms. Many service members deal with anger, forgetfulness, sleepless nights, and nightmares.This book explains these and how they affect Dad. The moral of the story is that even though Dad gets angry and yells, he still loves his family more than anything.
The astonishing, powerful debut by the winner of a 2016 Whiting Writers' Award WHEREAS her birth signaled the responsibility as mother to teach what it is to be Lakota therein the question: What did I know about being Lakota? Signaled panic, blood rush my embarrassment. What did I know of our language but pieces? Would I teach her to be pieces? Until a friend comforted, Don’t worry, you and your daughter will learn together. Today she stood sunlight on her shoulders lean and straight to share a song in Diné, her father’s language. To sing she motions simultaneously with her hands; I watch her be in multiple musics. —from “WHEREAS Statements” WHEREAS confronts the coercive language of the United States government in its responses, treaties, and apologies to Native American peoples and tribes, and reflects that language in its officiousness and duplicity back on its perpetrators. Through a virtuosic array of short lyrics, prose poems, longer narrative sequences, resolutions, and disclaimers, Layli Long Soldier has created a brilliantly innovative text to examine histories, landscapes, her own writing, and her predicament inside national affiliations. “I am,” she writes, “a citizen of the United States and an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, meaning I am a citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation—and in this dual citizenship I must work, I must eat, I must art, I must mother, I must friend, I must listen, I must observe, constantly I must live.” This strident, plaintive book introduces a major new voice in contemporary literature.
New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice; Real Simple Best of the Month; Library Journal Editors’ Pick In the spirit of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, Bringing up Bébé, and The Smartest Kids in the World, a hard-hitting exploration of China’s widely acclaimed yet insular education system that raises important questions for the future of American parenting and education When students in Shanghai rose to the top of international rankings in 2009, Americans feared that they were being "out-educated" by the rising super power. An American journalist of Chinese descent raising a young family in Shanghai, Lenora Chu noticed how well-behaved Chinese children were compared to her boisterous toddler. How did the Chinese create their academic super-achievers? Would their little boy benefit from Chinese school? Chu and her husband decided to enroll three-year-old Rainer in China’s state-run public school system. The results were positive—her son quickly settled down, became fluent in Mandarin, and enjoyed his friends—but she also began to notice troubling new behaviors. Wondering what was happening behind closed classroom doors, she embarked on an exploratory journey, interviewing Chinese parents, teachers, and education professors, and following students at all stages of their education. What she discovered is a military-like education system driven by high-stakes testing, with teachers posting rankings in public, using bribes to reward students who comply, and shaming to isolate those who do not. At the same time, she uncovered a years-long desire by government to alleviate its students’ crushing academic burden and make education friendlier for all. The more she learns, the more she wonders: Are Chinese children—and her son—paying too high a price for their obedience and the promise of future academic prowess? Is there a way to appropriate the excellence of the system but dispense with the bad? What, if anything, could Westerners learn from China’s education journey? Chu’s eye-opening investigation challenges our assumptions and asks us to consider the true value and purpose of education.